● Serif Fonts

796 2026-07-30 note ♎︎ ♊︎

A collection of favorite serif typefaces spanning old-style, transitional, and modern classifications for editorial work, book design, and display applications.

Old Style & Garalde

EB Garamond

Open-source revival of Claude Garamond's 16th-century typeface, based on the 1592 Berner specimen. Designed by Georg Mayr-Duffner and Octavio Pardo.

Lusitana

Serif typeface by Ana Paula Megda (2011), rooted in the 1572 edition of "The Lusiads" by Luís Vaz de Camões. Humanist old-style with bracketed serifs and warm, calligraphic stroke endings.

Sorts Mill Goudy

Revival of Goudy Oldstyle and Italic by The League of Moveable Type, based on ATF foundry type from 1915. Features small capitals, ligatures, and characteristic diamond-shaped punctuation.

Young Serif

Variable old-style serif by Bastien Sozeau of NoirBlancRouge, inspired by Plantin Infant. Rounded curves on lowercase 'b' and 'f' add a tender quality. Open source under OFL.

Transitional & Contemporary

IBM Plex Serif

Transitional serif by Mike Abbink at IBM with Bold Monday (2017). Inspired by Bodoni and Janson with ball terminals and rectangular serifs. Part of the IBM Plex superfamily.

Literata

Serif by TypeTogether (Veronika Burian and José Scaglione), commissioned by Google in 2015 for Google Play Books. Features distinctive upright italic for screen reading. Now a variable font with weight and optical size axes.

Newsreader

Open-source serif by Production Type (Hugues Gentile), commissioned by Google Fonts for on-screen reading. 42 styles with three optical sizes and seven weights.

Source Serif 4

Open-source serif by Frank Grießhammer for Adobe as companion to Source Sans. Inspired by Pierre Simon Fournier with five optical sizes and six weights (60 styles total).

Crimson Pro

Redesign of Crimson Text by Jacques Le Bailly, commissioned by Google (2019). Contemporary Garalde-style inspired by Garamond, Jenson, and Bembo. Variable font with 8 weights.

Modern & Display

Old Standard TT

Revival of Modern (classicist) style serif by Alexey Kryukov, based on late 19th and early 20th century editions. Suited for scientific papers and academic texts, especially in Greek and Cyrillic.

STIX Two Text

Revision of STIX fonts by Tiro Typeworks, commissioned by scientific publishers. Two variable text fonts (Roman and Italic) plus eight static fonts. Replaces Times New Roman clone with design referencing original 10pt metal type.

Soft Serif & Display

Fraunces

Display "Old Style" soft-serif by Phaedra Charles and Flavia Zimbardi of Undercase Type, commissioned by Google Fonts (2018). Inspired by Windsor, Souvenir, and Cooper Series. Variable font with four axes: weight, optical size, softness, and wonk.

Instrument Serif

Condensed display serif by Rodrigo Fuenzalida for Instrument brand (2022). Contemporary take on old-style serif characteristics for large sizes. Single weight plus matching italic.

Libertinus Serif Display

Derivative of Libertinus Serif Regular optimized for display at large sizes. Part of Libertinus font project, forked from Linux Libertine in 2012. Light and elegant variant for titles and headlines.

Mozilla Headline

Custom typeface for Mozilla by Studio DRAMA. Features uniwidth design maintaining standardized spacing across all weights and styles, eliminating text reflow. Part of Mozilla type family.

Stack Sans Headline

Variable sans-serif by Koto for Stack Overflow's rebrand. Tight spacing and strong optical correction for headline sizes. Weight axis spanning six instances (ExtraLight to Bold).

Humanist & Editorial

Radio Canada

Humanist typeface by Charles Daoud with Coppers and Brasses (2017) for CBC/Radio-Canada. Brand-unifying information font with distinctive angles and subtle curves. Won three awards in 2018.

Radio Canada Big

Variable font with weight axis (400-700), part of Radio Canada family. Designed for larger display applications while maintaining humanistic style and legibility.

Public Sans

Fork of Libre Franklin by U.S. Web Design System, designed by Dan Williams (2019). Free open-source webfont for government websites with tailed lowercase 'l' and regularized stroke weight.

Miranda Sans

Contemporary sans-serif by Max Thunberg, added to Google Fonts in 2026. Open forms and low stroke contrast for clear reading. Variable font with weight axis (400-700).

Monospace Serif

Iosevka Charon Mono

Monospace font tuned for coding and terminal use by Juliette (jul-sh). Google Fonts-compliant version of Iosevka family. Excellent for technical writing and dense UI.

See also Sans-Serif FontsA collection of favorite sans-serif typefaces spanning humanist, grotesque, and geometric classifications for user interfaces, branding, and display applications. Humanist Sans-Serif Lato Humanist sans-serif by Warsaw-based designer Łukasz Dziedzic (2010). "Lato" means "Summer" in Polish. Semi-rounded details for warmth with… and Monospace FontsA collection of favorite monospace typefaces designed for coding, terminal applications, and technical writing. These fonts prioritize legibility at small sizes and character disambiguation for programming environments. Programming Fonts with Ligatures Fira Code Monospaced font with ligatures for common programming… for complementary typeface categories. For writing guidance, see House StyleOne clause per paragraph, not one topic per paragraph. Rhythm over density. If the connection between two ideas isn't obvious from putting them next to each other, the fix is a better sentence, not a bridging clause like "the same….