Extra Bold, Ultra Black Fonts: Hit Hard with Heavy Duty Type

  • Handpicked Typefaces
Handpicked Typefaces | Stephen Coles | July 24, 2007

In an effort to get noticed, a lot of folks turn to the most obvi­ous item in their font menu: Impact™. In con­cept, it plays the role well. It is heavy and con­densed, yet still leg­i­ble, with short descen­ders that enable the user to stack head­lines big and tight. The prob­lem: overuse. No matter how loud it looks, a type­face can only shout so many times before it loses its voice.

For­tu­nately, when a pow­er­ful vehi­cle is needed to carry an impor­tant mes­sage, there are plenty of capa­ble, but less obvi­ous type­faces for the job. Have a look at our Extra Bold newslet­ter and see more heavy duty head­line options in the list below.

Compact Sans

Compact Sans Serifs

Tall and narrow, with gigan­tic x-heights and com­pact descen­ders, these space-​efficient sans serifs pack in the most words per line.

Ultra-Black-Sans

Heavy Sans Serifs

Large sans serif fam­i­lies often include a “Black” or “Ultra” weight at the dark end.

Ultra Black Slab Serifs

Heavy Slab Serifs

There is no serif tougher than a slab serif.

Soft Chunky Serifs

Chocolate Chunk Serifs

The soft, goopy serifs that often grace candy wrap­pers or vin­tage tee shirts.

High Contrast Serifs

High Contrast Serifs

Shout with grace. These serif faces get extra dark while retain­ing their thin hair­line strokes.


Fat and Round

Fat and Round

Hot dog type like VAG Rounded taken to a very plump extreme.


Playful and Comical

Playful and Comical

Bul­bous and ani­mated type­faces derived from comics, pack­ag­ing, and show card lettering.


Blacketters

Blackletters

Here are heavy metal’s heaviest.

Wood Type

Wood Types

Back when type was set by hand, the biggest, bold­est let­ters were made of wood to save costs. Head­line type­faces from this era have a par­tic­u­larly warm, organic qual­ity or charm­ing idiosyncrasies.

Bold Novelties

Other Novelties

Techno types, sten­cils, retro faces, and other extra bold nov­el­ties in the Dis­play type category.

Blackest

None More Black

The Blackest

“How much more black could these be? And the answer is none, none more black.”

Update May 2, 2008 — Sev­eral new fonts added.

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8 Comments:

This is an incred­i­bly useful list for a designer. Thanks!

Posted by Mahatma on Jul. 25, 2007

Where have you been all my life! I never took typog­ra­phy 101 but love to learn about it, hard to find good resources, this list is the best!

Posted by darby on Aug. 13, 2007

I have been using this list since you pub­lished it and its about time I thanked you for it.
Thanks!

Posted by mmolai on Oct. 21, 2007

I landed on your page look­ing for the name of the type­face used in the “John Edwards 08” cam­paign…

“”On Design Observer, Bierut sets the record straight, saying it’s Futura, which is what he said in the first place.”

It’s NOT futura - or Bierut must have been talk­ing about another ver­sion - but what type­face is it ?

Notice the quasi-​identic arms of the ‘E’, and the same width of the strokes, all par­al­lel.
( I sub­scribed to these comments’s feed, so feel free to answer here ! )

Posted by Tris on Nov. 1, 2007

Hi Tris. The John Edwards cam­paign uses Gotham, a type family we don’t carry, but you can get very close with Mark Simonson’s Prox­ima Nova Black.

Posted by Stephen Coles on Nov. 8, 2007

Thank you, Stephen !!

Posted by Tris on Dec. 12, 2007

thank you.

Posted by amica on Oct. 7, 2008

Thanks a lot. Great ref­er­ence

Posted by fredda on Apr. 14, 2009

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