Slab Serif Fonts

16 timelessly modern, beautiful slab serif fonts

Your designs are on trend with these very popular slab serif fonts. We will show you a variety of 16 modern fonts.


Aptifer Slab (Black, Black Italic)


With its neutral shapes, which exude an air of Antiqua, the Aptifer Slab from Mårten Thavenius is among the modern slab serif fonts. The bold styles contained in the selection show off the special character of the font and lend your headline a high degree of recognition value.


Xenois Slab (Heavy, Heavy Italic)


A lack of spurs is a hallmark of the Xenois extended family from Erik Faulhaber; this lends the reduced letter shapes distinctive character, with an inherent and unique power. The strong styles included in the selection give your headlines a very modern, contemporary touch.


Soho (Condensed Heavy, Compressed Heavy)


With Soho, Sebastian Lester has created a slab serif that is conservative enough to handle large jobs, thanks to its diversity and endurance, but modern enough to stimulate the imagination of the reader. Two narrow styles from the huge Soho family are included in the selection.


PMN Caecilia (Roman, Italic)


A slight contrast in weight and a large x-height give PMN Caecilia by Peter Matthias Noordzij a solid, timeless character. The modern slab serif has a carefully crafted, true italic, which is included along with the upright Roman style in the selection.


LinoLetter (Medium, Medium Italic)


The goal was to design a font that is easy to read, even under difficult printing conditions – the result was LinoLetter. It was created in the Linotype Design Studio under the supervision of Professor André Gürtler and Reinhard Haus. The lightly fluted serifs give the font a friendly and lively character. You can safely use the Medium and Medium Italic contained in the Selection for continuous text.


Siserrif (Semibold, Semibold Italic)


The easily legible Siserrif from Bo Berndal is suited to editorial work that requires a good hierarchical scheme, thanks to the marked differentiation between the upright and cursive styles. For instance, use the Bold and Semibold Italic included in the selection for headings and sub-headings.


Memphis (Light, Light Italic)


Constructed shapes lend Memphis by Rudolf Wolf a technical and rational character. Use the font for texts that are in need of a clear and neutral appearance, for example. With their noble appearance, the Light styles contained in the selection also make for great designs.


Clarendon (Bold, Bold Condensed)


The characteristic extended line ends are the distinctive mark of the Slab Serif classic, Clarendon. The unique font can win anyone over – particularly in headlines – with its high degree of recognition value. You get the Bold and Bold Condensed styles in the selection.


Slab Serif fonts: contemporary and modern typography for your designs

With their robust appearance, Slab Serif fonts have been back in fashion for designers for some time. These fonts are not new in the true sense of the word - their history can be traced back almost 200 years.

The initial variations of the previously known Antiqua serif fonts, which combine very strong serifs with a lower contrast in weights, began to appear at the start of the 19th century. The new design not only accompanied the onset of industrialization, but is also considered the start of the advertising text. What is standard practice today, started then: Fonts that are explicitly marketed by their makers for “display use”. The first slab serifs also picked up another trend: Although they have nothing whatsoever to do with Egypt, as a result of the enthusiasm for the North African country at that time – and for better marketing – they were referred to as “egyptienne”.

Since that time, countless representatives of the Slab Serif have appeared. While categorization is difficult and not always clear, we will nonetheless present some design variations in brief. One classic among slab serifs is Clarendon, which was first published in 1845 by R. Besley & Co. A relatively distinct contrast in weights and the characteristic, extended line ends in particular give this font a friendly and lively character. In the 1950s and 80s, the style of Clarendon experienced a great revival, which led to interpretations like Volta or Egiziano Black.


Many modern slab serif fonts are somewhat more reduced in their design vocabulary, based more on the Antiqua and have a more dynamic effect. One of the first new slab serifs originated in the 1980s, PMN Caecilia by Peter Matthias Noordzij. More recent are, for example, Compatil Letter (2001), Aptifer Slab (2006) or Xenois Slab (2013).


The Slab Serif fonts have developed in a different direction, away from the Antiqua and towards constructed forms. The somewhat technical, in some cases even futuristic, flair give these fonts a very modern and contemporary character. One of the most famous slab serifs from this range is Rockwell. But Lubalin Graph, Memphis or Serifa are also popular representatives of this style.


The last thing we should point out is that, although some fonts do not appear to fall into this slab serif category at first glance, they do belong to this genre. This includes, for example, Western fonts like Figaro, Westside or Wanted. Fonts from the experimental phase of the 1990s, such as the Linotype Authentic Serif or Retro Bold, also belong here, however.

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