What Is Sans Serif?

Sans serif is a typeface style in which letters end in plain strokes. Compare the capital I and the M in a serif face and in a sans: the sans version has no feet, no flags and no brackets. The term borrows the French sans, meaning “without”. It is written both “sans serif” and “sans-serif”; CSS uses the hyphenated sans-serif.

A short history

Letters without serifs exist in ancient Greek inscriptions, but sans-serif type is a 19th-century invention. The first showings were in the 1810s, and the first versions were heavy and used for posters and shop signs. Printers called them grotesques in Britain and Europe and gothics in the United States, which is why you still meet names such as Franklin Gothic and Century Gothic for typefaces that are nothing like blackletter. In the 20th century, the Bauhaus and Swiss design movements made sans serif the symbol of modernism.

The four common types

Geometric faces tend to have single-storey a, perfect circle o, and near-identical letter widths. Humanist ones keep some stroke modulation and a calligraphic feel, which many readers find friendlier in text.

Some sans-serif designs have flared stroke ends, such as Optima, which sits between serif and sans.

Practical points

• Legibility depends on the details, not the category. Letters such as capital I, lowercase l and numeral 1 can look identical in some sans faces, which causes problems in passwords and codes. See x-height for how proportions affect legibility at small sizes.
• Sans-serif is the default for UI and signage because simple shapes survive scaling and distance.
• It pairs well with a serif. Using one of each, with strong contrast, is the standard approach. Our serif vs sans-serif guide covers pairing.

Sans serif in lettering

Sans-serif letters are the easiest to construct: monoline strokes of consistent width with round or square terminals. This is why block letters and many bubble letter styles start from a sans skeleton, as shown in how to draw bubble letters. The difficulty lies in consistency of weight and spacing, which is why kerning and even stroke width are what separates a neat sans-serif lettering piece from a messy one.

Sans serif in fancy Unicode text

The Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols block has four sans-serif sets: normal, bold, italic and bold italic. Examples: 𝖲𝖺𝗇𝗌 (sans), 𝗦𝗮𝗻𝘀 (bold), 𝘚𝘢𝘯𝘴 (italic), 𝙎𝙖𝙣𝙨 (bold italic). Our bold text generator and italic text generator output them. They are meant for mathematics, and screen readers may read them oddly, so use them for decoration, not for important messages, as explained in fancy text accessibility.

Common confusions

• Sans serif does not mean “sans-serif font only”. The word describes the style, and many fonts belong to it.
• Gothic can mean sans-serif. In Japan, the sans style is called gothic as well, and in the US a gothic face may be sans. Blackletter is a different thing; see blackletter.