Lato is a sans-serif typeface family designed by Warsaw-based designer Lukasz Dziedzic in the summer of 2010 (“Lato” means “Summer” in Polish). His foundry tyPoland, with support from Google, released the Lato family under the open-source Open Font License in December 2010.
The semi-rounded letter details give Lato a warm feeling, while the strong structure provides stability and seriousness.
Lato Font Combinations
Which font goes well with Lato?
Lato is a sans serif typeface that works great for screen reading even with smaller font sizes. Lato is usually used for the body text and less for the headings. In order to create contrast we will use similar but opposite serif typefaces mainly for the title and the headings.
Best Lato combination are serif fonts with similar x-height.
Other thing to consider:
Apertures: An aperture is an opening in a letter form or a symbol.
Axis: The axis is an imaginary line drawn from top to bottom of a glyph that bisects the upper and lower strokes.
Letter forms comparison.
Lato and Playfair Display Font Pairing
Playfair has a transitional style. Broad nib quills were replaced as the popular writing tool of the day during the European Enlightenment in the late 18th century by pointed steel pens. With advancements in printing technology, ink, and paper manufacturing, it became possible to print letterforms with high contrast and delicate hairlines that were becoming increasingly detached from the written letterforms.
This design is influenced by the designs of John Baskerville and ‘Scotch Roman’ designs, lending itself well to this period. As a Display (large size) design in the transitional genre, it is functional and stylistic, able to accompany Georgia for body text.
Playfair Display works great with Lato because they have similar x-height, axis, and apertures. Lato can be used as the main body text and Playfair Display can be used for the headings.
Arvo and Lato Font Pairing
Arvo is a slab-serif typeface family that is suited for both screen and print. The family includes 4 cuts: Roman, Italic, Roman Bold, Bold Italic. It is a libre font, first published in Google Fonts. The font has a mixed flavor. It’s monolinear-ish, but has a tiny bit of contrast (which increases the legibility a little in Mac OS X.)
Lato and Arvo have extremely similar letter forms and x-height. It almost looks like Avro is a Lato slab version. Avro can exclusively be used for the headings and Lato for the main text. Here is Arvo and Lato Font Pairing web demo.
IBM Plex Serif and Lato Font Pairing
Plex was designed to reflect IBM’s history and values, specifically the company’s longstanding focus on the relationship between people and machines. The result is a versatile typeface family that includes Sans, Sans Condensed, Mono, Serif, and several other styles for several languages. Plex’s excellent legibility across print, web, and mobile makes it a great choice for any project.
IBM Plex Serif and Lato have similar x-height and Plex Serif can be used to create some beautiful headings(titles). Here is IBM Plex Serif and Lato web demo.
Lora and Lato Font Pairing
Lora is a well-balanced contemporary serif with calligraphy roots. It’s a text typeface with moderate contrast that works well for body text.
Because of its brushed curves in contrast to driving serifs, a paragraph set in Lora will stand out. Lora’s overall typographic voice perfectly conveys the mood of a contemporary story or an art essay. Lora is technically optimized for screen appearance, but it also works well in print.
Lato and Lora are excellent matches, they have similar x-height, letter shapes, apertures, and axis. Lora can be used as headings and Lato can be used as body text. Here is Lora and Lato Pairing web demo.
Roboto Serif and Lato Font Pairing
Roboto Serif is a variable typeface family created to make reading more comfortable and frictionless. Because of the extensive set of weights and widths across a wide range of optical sizes, it is useful anywhere (even for app interfaces). While it was carefully designed to work well in digital media across the full range of sizes and resolutions available today, it is just as easy to read and work in print media.
Roboto Serif and Lato are a great match, they have almost identical x-height and letter shapes. Because of the great legibility of Roboto Serif, it can be used for the main body text or for the headings(titles). The same goes for Lato.
Bree Serif and Lato Font Pairing
TypeTogether’s award-winning family Bree has a friendly upright italic serif cousin. Veronika Burian and José Scaglione designed Bree, which was originally released in 2008. Bree became an immediate success because of its originality, charming appearance, and versatility.
Lato and Bree Serif have similar x-height, axis, and apertures. Bree Serif can be used for the titles and Lato for the main text.
Lato and PT Serif Font Pairing
PT Serif is the second pan-Cyrillic font family created for the “Public Types of the Russian Federation” project. The project’s first family, PT Sans, was released in 2009.
Lato and PT Serif have similar x-height, axis, and apertures. Lato can be used for the main text and PT Serif for the titles. PT Serif can be also used for the main text.
Literata and Lato Font Pairing
Literata is a contemporary serif typeface family for long-form reading.
Literata and Lato have similar x-height, apertures, and letter shapes but different axis. Literata can be used for the titles or for the main text. Literata is designed with readability in mind.
Conclusion: Our favorite Lato font combinations are IBM Plex Serif, Lora, and Arvo fonts. But also the other fonts from this list are good choices.
