Skip to content
FontsNotoIconsKnowledgeFAQ

Roboto

About

Roboto has a dual nature. It has a mechanical skeleton and the forms are largely geometric. At the same time, the font features friendly and open curves. While some grotesks distort their letterforms to force a rigid rhythm, Roboto doesn’t compromise, allowing letters to be settled into their natural width. This makes for a more natural reading rhythm more commonly found in humanist and serif types.

Updated July 2020: Upgraded to a variable font with Weight and Width axes, that closely match the previous static fonts released as two families, this one and a sibling Roboto Condensed family.

Roboto is part of a superfamily set that includes Roboto Slab and Roboto Mono

To report issues or contribute, see github.com/TypeNetwork/Roboto. This repository also contains further font builds for different platforms.

Designers

Formed in 1989, Font Bureau has been active in the design of typefaces, the development of tools for both type design and typography, and as a consultant in the development of font technology for both operating systems and applications.

Font Bureau’s custom fonts are seen in hundreds of publications world-wide. It’s retail font library is popular among designers of a wide range of projects, and its pioneering work in variable font technology has set examples for both the finessing of typography for better composition, and new levels of expression that type can bring to reinforce user interest in any design.

fontbureau.typenetwork.com

Choosing type

When you have some text, how can you choose a typeface? Many people—professional designers included—go through an app’s font menu until we find one we like. But the aim of this Google Fonts Knowledge module is to show that there are many considerations that can improve our type choices. By setting some useful constraints to aid our type selection, we can also develop a critical eye for analyzing type along the way.

Roboto - Google Fonts