Cabin vs Open Sans
Two sans-serif faces, set live below in their own letters — then the honest take on which to pick and when.
At a glance
- Personality
- Warm, humanist, retro-tinged
- Neutral, open
- Inspiration
- Johnston / Gill humanist
- Contemporary web-first
- Best for
- Craft, lifestyle brands
- Any body / UI text
- Designer
- Pablo Impallari, 2010
- Steve Matteson, 2011
CabinOpen Sans
The honest take
Two humanist sans faces for comfortable reading, with a difference in warmth and inspiration. Open Sans (Steve Matteson, 2011) is the ubiquitous neutral body sans — upright, open and endlessly safe. Cabin (Pablo Impallari, 2010) is a humanist sans inspired by the classic Edward Johnston and Eric Gill traditions, with slightly rounded, gently curved forms that give it a warmer, more crafted, faintly retro character. Choose Open Sans for the most neutral, familiar body voice that never calls attention to itself. Choose Cabin when you want a body sans with a little more warmth and hand — good for lifestyle, craft and small-business sites that want to feel human without going playful. Both handle running text well across 400–700; Open Sans is the safe default, Cabin the more characterful humanist alternative.
The x-ray
Same size, same baseline — Cabin over Open Sans. Where they agree the strokes merge; where they argue, fringes.
“Hamburgefonstiv” is the type designer's test word — it carries most of the shapes that give a face away.