Empirical FONT Download

Empirical was designed by Russell Bean and published by Type Associates. Empirical contains 12 styles and family package options.  

When I first approached this design back in 2003 I wrote myself a design brief that called for a simple sans serif 'avec serifs' (with serifs).

Its emphasis needed to be on text usage but to be at home in display sizes. A range of weights with a controlled step from one weight to the next, uniform character sets, spacing and kerning throughout the range. Attention to openness of counter spaces would be paramount to work in text sizes. Matching italics should be true italics not merely slanted - with a cursive feel.

During extensive testing I decided to include a suite of ligatures to eliminate the hairline gaps that occur between slab serifs at display sizes. The user needs only to activate 'standard ligatures' which is on by default in most apps.

Six years in the making, I think it was worth the wait.

Font Family:
· Empirical One
· Empirical One Italic
· Empirical Two
· Empirical Two Italic
· Empirical Three
· Empirical Three Italic
· Empirical Four
· Empirical Four Italic
· Empirical Five
· Empirical Five Italic
· Empirical Six
· Empirical Six Italic


File Size: 8.83 MB

Tags: avec-serif, din, display, grotesque, joined, ligatures, linked, modular, monoline, sans, sans serif, some-serifs, technical, text, uniform, unique, versatile

Release date: October 20, 2009

You can use this font for:
- Design projects: create images or vector artwork, including logos
- Website publishing: create a Web Project to add any font from our service to your website
- PDFs: embed fonts in PDFs for viewing and printing
- Video and broadcast: use fonts to create in-house or commercial video content and more
- The fonts are designed to work on MacOS (Apple) and Windows (Microsoft)

Preview: