Lato

Sans Serif humanist-sans by Lukasz Dziedzic #8 on Google Fonts
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Weight

About Lato

Warsaw-based designer Lukasz Dziedzic created Lato with a dual personality: semi-rounded details in letters like 'a' and 'e' give it warmth up close, while the overall structure reads as clean and businesslike at a distance. These seemingly contradictory traits make it highly effective for corporate websites and marketing materials where trustworthiness and approachability must coexist. Available in five weights with matching italics, it has endured as a reliable body text choice for over a decade.

Character Map

AaBbCcDdEeFfGgHhIiJjKkLlMm
NnOoPpQqRrSsTtUuVvWwXxYyZz
0123456789
!@#$%^&*()_+-=[]{}|;':",.<>?

Weight Waterfall (5)

100 Thin
300 Light
400 Regular
700 Bold
900 Black

How to Use

<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Lato:wght@100;300;700;900;400&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">
@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Lato:wght@100;300;700;900;400&display=swap');
font-family: 'Lato', sans-serif;
brew install --cask font-lato

Details

Category
Sans Serif
Style
humanist-sans
Weights
5
Italic
✓
Korean
✗
Designer
Lukasz Dziedzic
License
OFL
Version
Popularity
#8

License Usage

Web useAllowed
PrintAllowed
Video / BroadcastAllowed
PackagingAllowed
App embeddingAllowed
Brand / LogoAllowed
ModificationAllowed

OFL — Free for personal & commercial use

Language Support

latin latin-ext

Best For

body-text web business

Similar Fonts

Typography Concepts

  • Web Font

    A font specifically designed or licensed for use on websites, loaded via CSS @font-face or services like Google Fonts.

  • OFL (SIL Open Font License)

    The most common open-source font license. Allows free use, modification, and redistribution. All Google Fonts use OFL or Apache 2.0.

  • Modular Scale

    A sequence of harmonious numbers based on a ratio (e.g., 1.25 minor third, 1.333 perfect fourth, 1.618 golden ratio) used to set type sizes.

  • Letter Spacing

    The CSS property for adjusting spacing between all characters. Positive values spread letters apart; negative values bring them closer.

  • FOUT

    Flash of Unstyled Text — when a fallback font briefly appears before the web font loads. Mitigated by font-display: swap.

  • CLS (Font-related)

    Cumulative Layout Shift caused by font loading — text reflows when web font replaces fallback due to different metrics. A Core Web Vital issue.

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