Michigan State Fonts: Metropolis, Garamond and Brand Roles

MSU’s Brand Studio identifies Metropolis as its primary sans-serif family and, as of August 2024, the only approved face for its Part of campaign. The guide describes it as appropriate for both headlines and text. This identifies institutional communications typography; it does not identify every athletics uniform, historical logo or unofficial Spartan graphic.

The guide names Garamond for limited traditional or formal contexts, with Times New Roman as the next option. It lists Liberator as an uppercase secondary display face and explicitly excludes it from body copy and websites. A coherent identity can therefore include more than one family while assigning each a specific purpose.

MSU lists Arial, Helvetica and Times New Roman as substitutions when documents or presentations are shared in native formats and recipients may lack the brand fonts. Keep that situation separate from a finished graphic. Identify the recipient’s editing needs before selecting the font and preserve a note of the intended family with the handoff.

Build a sample with an event heading, date, location and a short description. Decide which line should lead, then keep the supporting information restrained. Compare a formal serif direction only where the subject calls for it. The presentation guide and poster collection offer broader layout comparisons; use the university’s current assets for actual MSU work.