Humanist sans

A humanist sans keeps the skeleton of hand written and old style letterforms but drops the serifs. You can see the pen in it: a slight thick and thin variation, an angled stress, a double story a and g, an e with a real diagonal bar, terminals that cut at an angle instead of straight across. Gill Sans, Frutiger, Myriad, Optima, Lato, Source Sans, and Open Sans all sit here.

It is the default answer for anything with a lot of words: documentation, long form articles, forms, wayfinding, dense app UI. The letters are more differentiated than in a geometric sans, so the eye distinguishes shapes faster and at smaller sizes. Frutiger was literally drawn for airport signage read at distance and speed.

Where it goes wrong: humanist warmth reads as generic when everyone on the internet is using the same three faces. If the brief calls for a distinct voice, a humanist sans will do the job well and say nothing memorable. Pair it with a serif or a stronger display face and let the humanist carry the reading load.