Many sans serifs will work. What is the subject matter and audience of your project?

It's for my CV and portfolio. I'm a student looking for a job.

Are you limited to your current font library rather than looking to purchase? I assume so. It might be best to know what is available to you first.

I have most of the well-known typefaces, and I don't mind purchasing more. So anything would be okay.

Here are some sans serifs with similar proportions to Sabon but each are from very different genres. If one looks good to you, I can recommend more from the same genre.

FF Absara
FF Bau
Cronos
Tschichold

Thanks for the ideas! I will try those and see where that gets me.

FWIW, I would add Syntax

Really, Charles? Syntax feels so dated to me. Really '80s, and not in a good way.

Syntax is perfect for Sabon! It was originally created as sort of a sans serif version of Sabon.

Anne – one of the great things about posting here is the realisation that such innocuous-sounding questions provoke such diverse and impassioned responses. I too had strong feelings for Syntax but am going through what can only be described as a rather messy break-up with it.

FWIW, I would contrast graceful Sabon with something counterwise, like a gritty grotesque such as the bold or condensed weights of FB Grotesque or its antecedent, Monotype Grotesque.

-FF Din
-Xavier Dupré's FF Sanuk

>Cronos
Who works with Cronos?

It would be a shame to bother the grand Sabon with *Cronos.
*One of the well-known sans, i have a strong personal dislike against.
Okay, maybe it is because of my poor imagination ;)

I also like Syntax

Gill or Bliss

Tim

Syntax feels so dated to me. Really ’80s, and not in a good way.

Ah, but I'm a '60s guy -- uh, that's 1960s. We all had more fun in our youth. As you said, font selection depends on audience. Older people hire. But maybe I'm tooo old.

Seriously, My real problem with all this is I wouldn't use Sabon. It was one of the few text fonts that worked well on the Linotron 202, but somehow never survived the transition to PostScript. The PostScript italic is dreadful.

Now if I were hiring a book interior desiger and they used Sabon on their CV, they would start pretty far down the list. Things may well be different for people hiring another kind of designer, which is what makes your "audience" remark so very perceptive and appropriate.

The only thing I disagree with is the '80s look. Wasn't that the "me first" and "disco" decade? I think Syntax rather better than that.

Thank you everyone for the comments. This forum is very helpful to me.

Today Sans and Scala Sans would both work well IMHO

I hate to be picky, but the 70's was the disco decade. Are they all running together? ;)

Stephen, I can't search from this browser/Mac combo; isn't there a list somewhere we collected of humanist sans? Someone else asked a relevant question recently too.

I also wanted to find that thread that ended up being a list of narrow sans faces. That would be good to put in the wiki.

The late ’70s was Disco, no? The earlier years in that decade, although I was very young at the time, remind me of Led Zeppelin.

> The only thing I disagree with is the ’80s look. Wasn’t that the “me first” and “disco” decade? I think Syntax rather better than that.

A lot of text in the late '80s was set in Syntax and I don't think it ever looked great.

> Stephen, I can’t search from this browser/Mac combo; isn’t there a list somewhere we collected of humanist sans?

Probably, but I was looking for stuff of similar width and x-height to Sabon. A lot of Sans have a much larger x-height than Sabon and I was trying to narrow it down to the best matches.

Disco was definitely late 70s. As epitomized in 1977's Saturday Night Fever.

The 70s was also the "Me Decade" (as designated by Tom Wolfe in 1976).

I hate to be picky, but the 70’s was the disco decade. Are they all running together? ;)

Yes, as best I remember. Uh, are you sure you hate being picky?

I've always felt that Frutiger Roman and Frutiger Ultra Black go well with Sabon

Disco was definitely late '70s. Depends where you were at the time Patty; punk was also definitely late 70s, but I remember the two things co-existing for only the briefest of periods – maybe a single summer.

Back on topic, a lot of text in the '80s also got set in ITC Garamond, which, in my book, was always a much more evil choice than Syntax.

"are you sure you hate being picky?"

Naah, I love it actually. Well it's my job anyway... ;D

Punk was for sure late 70s too - provided a welcome antidote to the plastic-ness of disco. I remember that brief coexistence too but I think it was more than a summer. In NY at least, you had Horses in '76, Talking Heads 77 and the Ramones making noise at that time too. You could go to Studio 54 one night and the Mudd Club the next.

Patty! You just got 30 pts in my book for mentioning Talking Heads.

But we digress.