Type pairing for a clean serif, Lyon Text

inkyoto11 Jul 2014

Hey all, I'm currently revamping the typography for a text-heavy site. It's currently using Freight Sans and Freight Text, which are nice fonts but Text has some readability issues and Sans' style isn't exactly what I'm looking for—it's a bit too 'whimsical':

I'm looking to replace it with Lyon Text, which is a very clean and readable serif:

I'm not sure, however, about what typeface (sans-serif, preferably) to pair this with. Helvetica Neue used to be a go-to, but it looks rather generic now. The designer of Lyon has an anonymous-feeling Grotesk named Atlas that looks interesting, and other options like Graphik are catching my eye as well.

I'm looking for a modern, slightly 'opinionated' but mostly neutral sans-serif face that is pretty versatile, that would match well with the clean-cut face of Lyon. I'd appreciate some help on this front—thanks in advance for your suggestions.

nicolacaleffi15 Jul 2014#

How about Founders Grotesk?

https://klim.co.nz/retail-fonts/founders-grotesk/

vins10 Sep 2014#

LL Circular will be a nice choice.

http://lineto.com/The+Fonts/Font+Categories/Text+Fonts/Circular/

http://lineto.com/Lineto.com/Frontpages/2013/16+Apr+2013/LL+Circular+Typ...

kthomps510 Sep 2014#

I second Graphik, and would add Benton Sans, Alright Sans, and perhaps even LL Brown.

nina12 Sep 2014#

If you want something a bit more neutral, the designer of Lyon has also made a font for that: https://www.typotheque.com/fonts/neutral
I think it has a bit more character than Helvetica (and most importantly, isn’t Helvetica) but is more quiet than others mentioned in this thread – most of which (LL Circular, Graphik, LL Brown, maybe also Founders Grot) I would find too constructed and cold to pair with a clean but still warm/“bookish” font like Lyon.

grubstreet15 Sep 2014#

LL Circular works great, but it’s the choice of NYT Sunday Magazine (after all Lyon is commissioned by NYT Sunday). If you don’t mind using the same style as a magazine that is read by millions of people, use it.

Lyon is modern, humble, scientifically apt, elegant and legible. It has a certain style and asserts a statement that is not so strong. So you could either go with plain Neo-Grotesks to knock it down (LL Circular/Akkurat/Brown/) or go with warm humanists to honor its style (Scala Sans/Kievit/Whitney/Mercury/Ideal Sans). Or you could even risk some slab serifs like Chaparral or well-done Clarendons like Sentinel.

Captured from commoncrawl.org on 19 Apr 2015. original URL