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Urbanist

A low-contrast geometric sans built from elementary shapes, variable across nine weights with italics.

Sans Serif 18 styles · variable by Corey Hu OFL

Download family 164 KB Type your own text

Urbanist is a geometric sans serif with low stroke contrast by Corey Hu, inspired by Modernist typography and launched in 2020. Urbanist is a variable font with nine weights from Thin 100 to Black 900 and matching italics, 18 styles in all. It is released under the SIL Open Font License 1.1 and works for headings, branding and interface text.

Urbanist font preview card
Preview drawn by trendhub from the font files.
Designer
Corey Hu
Classification
Sans Serif
License
SIL Open Font License 1.1
Styles
18 9 weights, with italics
Variable font
Yes Weight 100–900
Glyphs
487
Languages checked
21 see the list
Last updated
version 1.303
Used for
HeadlinesInterfacesBrandingMinimalistGeometric

Official source: Google Fonts. Facts on this page were read from the font files and the source’s published data.

Try Urbanist

Sample text

Type over the sample to test your own words. The preview loads a Latin subset of Urbanist; the download contains the complete files.

Urbanist font specimen: alphabet, numerals and weights
Urbanist specimen: alphabet, numerals and weights. Image drawn by trendhub from the font files.

Weights and styles

  • Thin 100Urbanist Thin Thin Italic
  • ExtraLight 200Urbanist ExtraLight ExtraLight Italic
  • Light 300Urbanist Light Light Italic
  • Regular 400Urbanist Regular Italic
  • Medium 500Urbanist Medium Medium Italic
  • SemiBold 600Urbanist SemiBold SemiBold Italic
  • Bold 700Urbanist Bold Bold Italic
  • ExtraBold 800Urbanist ExtraBold ExtraBold Italic
  • Black 900Urbanist Black Black Italic

Urbanist is a variable font: the download holds the whole weight range in one file per style, and the named weights above are positions on that range.

About Urbanist

Urbanist is a geometric sans serif built from elementary shapes. In the specimen the O, C and G are close to circles, the a, b, d, p and q repeat one round bowl with a straight stem, and the a is single-storey; strokes keep an almost constant thickness, and the t and f are narrow with short crossbars. Corey Hu started the project in 2020, drawing on Modernist typography and design, and describes it as a neutral display face for print and digital work. The family has nine weights, Thin to Black, each with an italic, 18 styles delivered as two variable files with a weight axis from 100 to 900. Each font contains 487 glyphs for Latin and Latin Extended. Urbanist was added to Google Fonts in 2021 and is published under the SIL Open Font License 1.1.

Where Urbanist works

Startup and product branding
Circle-based letters give a wordmark a clean, modern outline, with nine weights to tune its presence.
Landing-page headlines
Thin 100 and Black 900 sit at opposite ends of one axis, so a page can contrast a hairline title with a heavy call to action.
Architecture and design portfolios
The Modernist source of the shapes matches grids, white space and captioned images.
App interfaces
Medium and SemiBold separate buttons from labels, and the italics handle secondary notes.
Presentation decks
Even stroke thickness keeps large slide titles and small footers visually related.

Glyphs

!"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~¡¢

Latin and Latin Extended characters in the preview subset; the complete family has 487 glyphs.

Language support

The family contains the core letters these languages are written with:

  • English
  • French
  • German
  • Spanish
  • Portuguese
  • Italian
  • Dutch
  • Swedish
  • Norwegian
  • Danish
  • Finnish
  • Icelandic
  • Catalan
  • Turkish
  • Czech
  • Slovak
  • Hungarian
  • Romanian
  • Slovenian
  • Lithuanian
  • Estonian

Character sets found in the files: latin, latin-ext. The language list is a check of required letters against the font, not a promise of typographic quality in each language.

License

SIL Open Font License 1.1Copyright 2021 The Urbanist Project Authors (https://github.com/coreyhu/Urbanist)

What the license allows

  • Use the fonts in personal and commercial work, in print, on the web and in apps.
  • Modify the fonts and build new versions from them.
  • Redistribute the fonts, on their own or bundled with software, as long as the license text and copyright notice go with them.

Conditions

  • The fonts cannot be sold by themselves.
  • A modified version must stay under the same license and cannot use a Reserved Font Name without the copyright holder's permission.
  • The authors' names cannot be used to promote a modified version without permission.

This is a short summary, not legal advice. The license text decides: read the full OFL text. A copy is included in the download.

Fonts that pair with Urbanist

Bentham Serif

Urbanist is sans serif and Bentham is serif (1 weight): the difference in structure separates headings from text.

Arbutus Slab Slab Serif

Urbanist is sans serif and Arbutus Slab is slab serif (1 weight): the difference in structure separates headings from text.

Cutive Mono Monospace

Cutive Mono is a monospace family (1 weight) for code and figures next to Urbanist as the text face.

Suggestions come from simple rules on the records: a contrasting classification and enough weights to carry body text. They are a starting point, not a verdict.

Use Urbanist on the web

Download the family and host the files on your own site, then declare them in CSS. Please do not link to the files on trendhub.net: preview files here are subsets and their addresses change.

CSS, self-hosted
@font-face {
  font-family: "Urbanist";
  src: url("/assets/fonts/Urbanist-Italic-VariableFont_wght.ttf") format("truetype");
  font-weight: 100 900;
  font-style: italic;
  font-display: swap;
}
@font-face {
  font-family: "Urbanist";
  src: url("/assets/fonts/Urbanist-VariableFont_wght.ttf") format("truetype");
  font-weight: 100 900;
  font-style: normal;
  font-display: swap;
}

body {
  font-family: "Urbanist", sans-serif;
}

Or load it from the official source. Google Fonts serves Urbanist with this markup:

HTML, Google Fonts

Things to know

Two variable files
Roman and italic are separate variable fonts, each covering weights 100 to 900.
Single-storey a
The a is a round bowl with a stem, the same construction as b, d, p and q.
Latin only
The 487 glyphs cover Latin and Latin Extended character sets.

FAQs

Is Urbanist free for commercial use?

Yes. Urbanist is published under the SIL Open Font License 1.1, which allows use in personal and commercial work, modification and redistribution. The font cannot be sold on its own, and modified versions stay under the same license.

Who designed Urbanist?

Urbanist was designed by Corey Hu, who launched the project in 2020.

How many weights does Urbanist have?

Urbanist has nine weights, from Thin 100 to Black 900, each with an italic, which makes 18 styles.

Is Urbanist a variable font?

Yes. Urbanist is a variable font with a weight axis from 100 to 900, in roman and italic files.

Which languages does Urbanist support?

Urbanist includes the letters needed for English and other Latin-script languages such as French, German, Spanish, Italian, Turkish, Czech and Hungarian.

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