The typographic categories known as Humanist or Old Style represent a traditional classification for fonts that emulate classical Roman inscriptions and the uniform medieval handwriting known as Carolingian minuscule, resulting in letterforms that mirror the natural angle and stroke of a hand-held pen. This style originated when Nicolas Jenson produced the earliest books featuring a Humanist serif design, drawing inspiration from the streamlined penmanship of Italian scholars who sought a faster method for copying manuscripts as a direct alternative to the dense decoration of Johannes Gutenberg’s Blackletter type.
While this classification was originally reserved exclusively for fonts with serifs, the design philosophy eventually expanded to include sans-serif typefaces that display these same organic, human-made characteristics. After a temporary drop in popularity during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, these type designs experienced a massive resurgence throughout the twentieth century and continue to be highly favored and widely utilized in contemporary design.
Examples of serif Humanist typefaces include Trixy, Audela, Nexa Serif, Alkes; an examples of sans serif Humanist typefaces is Squad.
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