The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
The Seasons vs Montserrat
A vintage-flavoured high-contrast serif against one of the most-used geometric sans-serifs on Google Fonts. The Seasons, by Elena Genova of My Creative Land, is a chic display serif with calligraphic italics, while Montserrat, by Julieta Ulanovsky, is a clean open-source sans drawn from early-20th-century Buenos Aires signage. They sit in different categories, so the choice is about tone rather than a like-for-like swap.
The Seasons is a commercial font, so it is shown here in Cormorant, its closest free alternative. All free alternatives to The Seasons →
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
- The Seasons is a high-contrast serif with sharply dramatic curves and softly sheared terminals shared across every weight from Thin to ExtraBold, whereas Montserrat is a low-contrast geometric sans with even strokes.
- The Seasons' italics are true calligraphic cursives written with a Pilot Parallel Pen, while Montserrat's italics are conventional slanted companions to the uprights.
- Montserrat was extensively revised in 2017 by Jacques Le Bailly on Google's commission, with a redistributed weight range and a later variable font, so it is tuned for text and screen use in a way the display-oriented Seasons is not.
- The Seasons is a commercial family sold through My Creative Land, Fontspring and Adobe Fonts, with separate licenses for self-hosted web and app use, whereas Montserrat is free under the SIL Open Font License with no per-project cost.
- Both cover Extended Latin and Cyrillic, so language support is not the deciding factor.
The Seasons
Reach for The Seasons when a brand, magazine, packaging or invitation wants an elegant, vintage-edged serif voice and the license fee is justified by the project.
Montserrat
Reach for Montserrat for websites, apps and headline-heavy marketing where you need a free, widely supported geometric sans with a full weight range and a variable font.