The word sans means without in French; consequently, the common definition for Sans serif font states that this is a type of font, which does not have decorative serif elements at the ends of the strokes. Other names for Sans serif font family are Gothic, grotesque, linear, Egyptian, antique, Doric, etc.; however, these names are not that popular these days.
Sans serif font has become a number one choice for displaying a text on digital media, including web. The point is that in view of low resolution, serifs can not always be properly displayed on screen. Thus, the text may appear too difficult to read. Alternatively, sans serif fonts do not have those tiny elements to render, and they are presented more clearly on computer displays. The most widely known representative of Sans serif font group is called Arial font.
Sans serif fonts have a very long history of their development and evolution, during which a few subtypes appeared. According to the general classification, there are 4 main groups of sans serif fonts: grotesque, neo-grotesque, humanist, and geometric.
Grotesque Sans serif font subset contains the earliest representatives of sans serif typefaces. Neo-grotesque, known also as transitional or realistic, is the most popular type of sans serif fonts. It includes Arial, Helvetica, MS Sans Serif and other widely popular typefaces. Humanist fonts are considered to be the most calligraphic within the Sans serif font family, while geometric ones are said to be very progressively looking due to their geometric shapes.
There are approximately two thousands of free sans serif fonts, currently available at Fonts2u web portal, specialized on digital fonts. Grouped into multiple categories with intuitively clear names, particular sans serif fonts can also be found through our sophisticated and flexible font searching tool, where you can specify any font characteristics from font type and classification to physical parameters and supported platform.