The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Knockout vs Untitled Sans
Two commercial sans-serifs from opposite ends of the expressive spectrum. Knockout, finished at Hoefler & Frere-Jones for Sports Illustrated's 1998 redesign, revives mid-1800s American wood-type gothics in nine boxing-named widths from Flyweight to Sumo — while Untitled Sans, Kris Sowersby's 2017 release for Klim Type Foundry, is a deliberately plain neo-grotesque drawn to look as if no one in particular designed it.
Knockout is a commercial font, so it is shown here in Oswald, its closest free alternative. All free alternatives to Knockout → Untitled Sans is a commercial font, so it is shown here in Inter, its closest free alternative. All free alternatives to Untitled Sans →
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
- Knockout is built around width: nine individually drawn widths named after boxing weight classes let headlines of different lengths fit by switching fonts, echoing the uneven 19th-century families that predated uniform type systems.
- Untitled Sans is built around weight instead, shipping ten styles from Light to Black with matching italics plus a variable weight axis, and offers only a single normal width.
- Knockout's compressed, wood-type forms carry an unmistakable editorial punch, and it has been adopted by hundreds of magazines and newspapers for headlines and text.
- Untitled Sans follows Jasper Morrison and Naoto Fukasawa's Super Normal philosophy, trimming National into a quiet, unassuming workhorse with no tricks or overt historical references.
- Both are paid retail fonts licensed per style for desktop, web and app, so family cost is a real factor — and Klim supplies the variable version only with a full-family purchase.
Knockout
Reach for Knockout when you want loud, space-tuned headlines with wood-type character — magazine covers, sports and editorial layouts, posters where a condensed or ultra-wide cut sells the headline.
Untitled Sans
Reach for Untitled Sans when you want a neutral, everyday grotesque that steps out of the way — identities, signage, long text and interfaces where the content should outrank the typeface.