Skip to content
fontkind.

Serif vs sans serif

Lesson 04 · 3 min read · Updated 30 September 2026

A serif is the small stroke that finishes the end of a letter’s main stroke. Serif fonts have them; sans serif fonts, from the French sans, without, do not. Here is one word in both, measured.

Mark
Serif · Instrument SerifBracketed serifs at the ends of the stems
Sans serif · DM SansNo serifs: every stroke ends plainly

The serifs, in red, finish the stems of the H, p and d; the sans ends the same strokes square.

01

What a serif is

Serifs go back to the Roman capitals cut in stone. One account has the brush that painted each letter before the chisel leave a flared finish at every stroke end, and the chisel keep it. Serifs come in many forms: bracketed serifs flow into the stem with a curve, as in Instrument Serif and Garamond; hairline serifs are thin, flat lines, as in Bodoni; slab serifs are square blocks nearly as heavy as the stems, as in Roboto Slab.

Sans serif letters end their strokes plainly. The first sans serif type appeared in England in the early nineteenth century and spent decades on posters and labels before it became the voice of modern design, and later of screens.

02

More than the serifs

Serifs are the visible difference, but rarely the only one. Serif typefaces usually have more contrast between thick and thin strokes. FontKind measures it on the o, its sides against its top and foot: Instrument Serif’s o is 3.0 times as thick at the sides, DM Sans’s only 1.2 times, and Bodoni Moda’s 5.3 times. Switch on contrast in the board to see where the thick and thin strokes are.

The two are built differently, too. Many serifs keep the trace of a broad pen, with the heaviest parts of round letters on a slant. Sans serifs are more often drawn with even strokes: some from circles and straight lines, as in Montserrat, some from the grotesques of the nineteenth century, as in Inter, and some from handwriting, as in Open Sans. The types of fonts sort them out.

03

Which is easier to read?

Neither, reliably. Studies comparing serif and sans serif text, on paper and on screen, have mostly found small differences or none. What changes legibility more is size, x-height, spacing, line length and how clearly letters that look alike, such as I, l and 1, are told apart.

Sans serifs became the default on screens when displays had too few pixels to draw a serif; on today’s sharp screens both read well. For readers with dyslexia, style guides such as the British Dyslexia Association’s suggest plain sans serifs at a generous size and spacing, and fonts made for dyslexia have not read better than ordinary clear ones in the studies that tested them. Atkinson Hyperlegible, drawn for the Braille Institute, works on the same principle: letters that are easy to tell apart.

04

When to use each

Choose by the job and the voice, not by a rule. Serifs read as editorial, literary and established: books, long articles, invitations and brands that trade on tradition. Sans serifs read as plain, modern and technical: interfaces, signs, captions and small text on screen. Many designs use both, a serif and a sans with a similar x-height and mood, one for headings and one for text.

The system fonts show the split. Georgia and Times New Roman are serifs; Arial and Verdana are sans serifs. For free fonts that look like them, see the free alternatives to Georgia and to Arial.

05

Try it in the game

06

Fonts to open

  • Serif
    Playfair Display

    Serif · high contrast, for headings

  • Serif
    EB Garamond

    Serif · an old-style book face

  • Serif
    Merriweather

    Serif · drawn for reading on screens

  • Serif
    Lora

    Serif · a calligraphic text face

  • Sans serif
    Inter

    Sans · a neo-grotesque for interfaces

  • Sans serif
    Open Sans

    Sans · humanist, with open shapes

  • Sans serif
    Montserrat

    Sans · geometric, after old Buenos Aires signs

  • Sans serif
    Atkinson Hyperlegible

    Sans · drawn so that similar letters differ

Serif fonts Sans serif fonts

07

Questions

Is Arial a serif or a sans serif font?
Arial is a sans serif: its strokes end plainly, with no serifs. Times New Roman and Georgia are serifs.
Which is easier to read, serif or sans serif?
Neither consistently. Studies have found little or no difference between the two; size, x-height, spacing and line length matter more than serifs.
What does sans serif mean?
Sans is French for without: a sans serif font is one without serifs, the small strokes that finish the ends of letters.
What is a slab serif?
A serif font whose serifs are heavy, square blocks, nearly as thick as the stems, as in Roboto Slab, Zilla Slab or Arvo.

08

More to learn

Every lesson