Montserrat vs Poppins
Two sans-serif faces, set live below in their own letters — then the honest take on which to pick and when.
The quick brown fox 0123456789
Julieta Ulanovsky · 2011 · weights 400, 500, 600, 700
The quick brown fox 0123456789
Indian Type Foundry · 2014 · weights 300, 400, 500, 600, 700
At a glance
- Personality
- Vintage-poster geometric
- Pure, rounded geometric
- Feel
- Urban, characterful
- Friendly, modern
- Scripts
- Latin
- Latin + Devanagari
- Designer
- Julieta Ulanovsky, 2011
- Indian Type Foundry, 2014
MontserratPoppins
The honest take
The two most-reached-for geometric sans headline faces on Google Fonts, and they differ more than they look. Montserrat (Julieta Ulanovsky, 2011) is drawn from the old signage and posters of the Montserrat neighbourhood in Buenos Aires: geometric, but with historical quirks and a slightly narrower, more urban feel that gives headlines edge. Poppins (Indian Type Foundry, 2014) is purer geometry — near-circular o's and monolinear strokes — which reads as clean, rounded and friendly, and it supports Devanagari as well as Latin. Choose Montserrat when you want a confident, characterful heading with a whiff of vintage poster. Choose Poppins when you want soft, modern, approachable geometry, or when you need Devanagari coverage. For long body text neither is ideal; both earn their keep in headings and short UI labels.
The x-ray
Same size, same baseline — Montserrat over Poppins. 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.
Read more
More about each face: Montserrat · Poppins