Spot is an approachable and familiar sans serif with a warm personality and a soft touch. It comes in three flavors: the proportionally spaced Spot Grotesk, the fixed-pitch Spot Mono, and a hybrid named Spot Semi Mono – all of which can optionally be had as a single variable font.

There are plenty of typefaces that eventually were augmented with a monospaced version. Spot is different in that regard: the Mono came first. This special genesis informs the appearance of the whole family. All styles breathe the spirit of typewritten text. It is evident in the uniform stroke width and the rounded ends. It can also be witnessed in details like the distinctive dots, which evoke a typebar hitting an inked ribbon with force, digging into the paper. On a less obvious but more consequential level, Spot’s origin materializes in the relatively wide proportions and the remarkably large x-height. Viewed the other way around, the latter can also be described as having restrained uppercase glyphs. When used in body copy, such short capitals yield a more even texture. They also allow for all-caps strings that don’t stand out too much from mixed-case text, which is advantageous in many situations, think paragraph lead-ins or acronyms. Thanks to the generous width, in combination with the open spacing, Spot is pleasant to read even in small sizes, as in marginalia and captions. When employed in larger sizes, its overall roundness comes to the fore, making it a friendly display font with a self-evident demeanor.

Many designers appreciate typewriter faces for their associations with correspondence, technical documentation, and code. They don’t always need to limit themselves to using an actually monospaced font, though. This is where Spot Grotesk comes in. It offers the same appeal of provisionality, austerity, and authenticity as Spot Mono, without the drawbacks of fixed character widths. Spot’s variable version features three axes: one for weight, one for slant, and a third one to alter the spacing, and to tune in the exact desired degree of “monospacedness”. Especially with instances between the Grotesk and the Semi Mono, this option can lead to delightful and unexpected results – including tiny stubs on those narrow glyphs that grow wide bars in the Mono.

Spot’s three branches each comprise four weights, in upright and italic. A generous repertoire of characters – including Latin Extended, sub- and superscript figures, innovative fractions, and a kit of playful and functional icons – equips Spot for a wide range of duties. This is a family that comfortably sets body copy just as well as it delivers plump headlines. It does both with a quiet dignity and subtle smile.