Grep communicates clearly, with a subtle sparkle. The design’s circuitous path began when a major tech company asked Ben Kiel for a screen-oriented sans. Considering his previous studies of readability, he looked back to his graduate project from the University of Reading: a text serif face for printed body copy. As an experiment, he removed the serifs to find what was left behind. Through simplification of the letterforms, the underlying principles of legibility and balance took more prominent focus. The new sans serif design was perfectly poised to excel in user interfaces on screen, although it retained the bookish warmth of its forebear.
The tech company went in another direction, but Ben kept running with the idea. Beyond the bright and utilitarian Grep Regular, the family’s heavier weights feature dramatic stroke modulation, taking inspiration from Roger Excoffon’s Antique Olive. We rely on Grep’s cheerful voice for all of the running text on our own website.
