FF Real Head Font

Erik Spiekermann first conceived FF Real as a text weight and a headline weight for his biography Hello I am Erik, published in 2014. Ralph du Carrois and Anja Meiners helped complete the font data. The design draws on early German grotesques while incorporating warmer American sans-serif references.

Read the publisher’s family page for the source account and the edition currently offered. Keep a family name distinct from its particular release, width or optical branch.

FF Real later expanded with italic, oblique and condensed resources. Head and Text are separate branches with different roles, so do not assume that a headline resource is the same drawing as a text version. Compare the exact width, slant treatment and edition shown in a document before selecting a replacement.

Use the original publisher specimen to inspect those features. An alternative can share a broad role without having the same letter shapes, metrics or character coverage.

Set a large editorial heading with a smaller explanatory paragraph. Compare an italic heading with an oblique only when the actual resources are available, judging how much calligraphic movement suits the layout. Use the intended Text branch for a longer reading comparison and keep the chosen branch and style recorded.

For independent comparisons, try Inter and Open Sans. Use the same wording and approximate output size. The related style guide provides broader design context.

Use FontFont to try the original and investigate the files, styles and terms for your intended workflow. This site does not distribute or serve FF Real Head font software.

The editable alternatives here have their own source profiles and included licenses. For the difference between a font file and copied characters, read Unicode text versus fonts.