Avería: The Average Font (2011)
9 comments
·November 8, 2025JoshTriplett
This is an experiment from 2011 in which the author produced a font by averaging all the fonts on their system.
I'm reposting it here because I noticed that this looks a lot like the uncanny valley produced when an image AI tries to make text, which makes perfect sense: it's a statistical average of fonts.
Clamchop
It also reminds me a bit of what text looks like after multiple rounds of photocopying. Like the handouts we'd get in grade school.
ozim
I don’t get uncanny valley feel from this one. It feels kind of great for me as a font.
msla
Interesting how modern designers think readable fonts (with serifs, so people can reliably distinguish between Al and AI, for example) are "uncanny" because they don't follow the latest trends in ultra-minimalist "design" and other fashions.
treetalker
Interestingly it evokes Open Dyslexic.
Pxtl
Yes, I saw the exact same thing when you posted it - "oh, AI text looks like an averaging of fonts".
DeathArrow
I wonder if you can ask AI to use a particular font for text in generated images.
peter-m80
Btw, "Avería" means "failure" in spanish
I've used Averia (Serif Libre, specifically) for at least a decade as my primary font for email, web pages in 'reader' mode, writing long-form text, etc. I find it extremely legible, and even calming.
Ironically, I've been a typographer for decades, both for print and online. Averia might seem an odd choice for someone intimately familiar with typographic theory/history and the vast catalog of possible fonts. But there's a certain pleasure and comfort in a font that is not trying to stand out or do anything particularly special.