Looking for something that's just your type?
We're confident we can help! Type designer, lettering artist, and Tailored Creatives alumnus Jamie Clarke visited our blog to talk us through the key font trends he thinks will make it big in 2026. Your labels, signage, and campaign aesthetics will read as cutting-edge, mark our words!
1. Art Deco revival with sparse class
Jamie thinks the naivety of AI type and lettering is reflected in the typefaces people are currently using. Namely, Art Nouveau – the opulent, organic shapes of this French style echo the super wobbly, freeform look of AI-generated imagery. And if Art Nouveau is currently trending, there’s one specific typeface that’s sure to follow it…
“I think there's an Art Deco trend that will follow [Art Nouveau], which it did historically, and seems to historically keep repeating itself. These things are so cyclical. Art Deco and Art Nouveau seem to pair with each other,” he says.
“Art Deco came in and said, ‘We want to clean this up and do something tighter.’ It’s that lovely 1920s, big ships, people traveling, and those lovely posters with the boats on them, and the big type. So, there's an element of that coming.”
Examples
2. Condensed gothics with ‘lowercase girl’ nuance
“I’ve been researching over the last six months what's termed as ‘condensed gothics.’ And there seems to be a really growing thing here. I'm designing [a font] now with the hope that I've caught this at the right time,” he says. “Condensed gothics make a lovely rectangular block of text. So, it's really neat. It's really impactful because it's a tight, dense, slightly shouty style. It's dramatic and powerful.”
Jamie thinks that the next angle for this burgeoning font—which we’re seeing all over film and TV at the moment—could be a marriage with the slightly older social media trend for understated lowercase comms, which later became known as ‘lowercase girl.’
“So, I'm thinking, ‘How about you mix those two things together, this lowercase feel with this kind of dramatic typeface that sets a beautiful rectangle of text?’” he says.
“That's what I've been working on—how can we use lowercase in this condensed, dramatic form to make a lovely, neat box and allow designers to say something with drama but nuance? Designers have basically sidelined lowercase in the condensed gothic style type, so why don't I flip the entire thing on its head and make it all about the lowercase and get that lovely, neat block?”
Examples
3. Experimental serifs with a playful twist
Is sans serif about to be knocked from its throne? Jamie thinks so!
The longevity, timelessness, and versatility of sans serif fonts like Helvetica have made them a favorite with brands for a long time. The simple letters are legible and leave plenty of room for consumer interpretation, but Jamie thinks things are about to get much more experimental thanks to the introduction of AI.
“When you add serifs, there's a lot more playfulness that can happen in a typeface, and I'm seeing more experimentation in that realm. There's a lot more going on because there's a lot more to do,” he says.
"A wider trend over the last few years has been a slight shift from sans serif to more creative serif work, and I would imagine that will continue, and you'll see a lot of that in monotypes, type trends, and things like that. There's an almost bubbly type and these kinds of experimental types," he says.
"I think people are being less precious about type at the moment and they're doing more with it. And I wonder if this is an AI-driven trend. I've seen so much eye-popping candy on the internet, where the type has been generated by AI. Just as a quick aside—AI can't really make type yet, because type is a vector format—but it's getting better and better all the time. I think that naivety and freedom were fed into the design community."
Examples
- Gooper by Very Cool Studio
- Rhythmic Regal by RabenRifaie Studio
- Bobaboy by Ronny Studio
Using trending typefaces in 2026
Worried that using a trending typeface will date your brand or pile on too much character to appeal to a wide demographic? Not to worry — in our experience, you can have your cake and eat it, too.
Although a classic sans serif is the ‘little black dress’ of the fashion world (IYKYK), trending typefaces are ideal to give a burst of flavor and memorability to capsule collections, limited drops, and exclusive releases (which are only going to get more popular in 2026; read all about it here). And Jamie agrees, saying, “I’ve seen a bit of that with sub brands. You've got the big, serious, ‘We're not going to say too much with our type’ brands with the ‘We can have fun with sub brands’ underneath.”
You’re not limited to paper, either. Label partners like us have the tech, resources, and know-how to help you translate the wildest typefaces and color palettes into gorgeous wovens and other innovative substrates, with top-notch color accuracy across the board. And if you want proof, check out the Tailored Creatives collaboration we did with Jamie, where we translated his typographical designs into color-accurate wovens.
Contact our expert team for more info on the innovative ways you can bring trending 2026 fonts into your labeling. We’re overflowing with ideas and always happy to share what we know!