Knockout Font

Knockout is a free high-contrast display serif with oversized vertical strokes and sharply cut geometric details. Its compact lowercase forms mix broad, blocky masses with fine joins, pointed notches, and abrupt slab-like edges, producing a forceful, slightly eccentric silhouette.

In poster design, the lettering can turn a title into a solid graphic shape rather than conventional typesetting. The same hard angles and dense forms suit music packaging, event graphics, and apparel aimed at an experimental or underground audience. It is most convincing on posters, where the striking gaps and wedges can become part of the central image.

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Knockout is a font created for Andrew Byrom’s advanced typography class at Cal State Long Beach. It was originally designed for building numbers and later expanded into a complete alphabet.