Open Source Fonts
Last updated November 5, 2025.
Listed in no particular order, here are some of my favourite open source typefaces to use as a graphic designer. These selections are focused on practical workhorse fonts and alternatives to classics that a certain unnamed conglomerate owns the licensing rights to.
Now, go make something!
Table of Contents
Serif
Literata | Versatile, expansive, and sexy. This is never a poor choice.
Gentium | Sets the bar for African language support.
EB Garamond | It’s hard to beat Garamond Premier Pro; it’s impossible to beat free.
Libre Baskerville | “You are on this list, but we do not grant you the rank of RIBBI.”
Lora | This font got me through college.
STIX, STIX Two Text | Loved by the scientific and engineering community.
Crimson Pro, Crimson Text | Has all the niceties like oldstyle figures, small caps, and fleurons.
Fraunces | For the love of Windsor, use Fraunces!
Besley | They could never get me to hate a Clarendon.
Vollkorn | Holy language support, Batman!
Bodoni Moda | Real eyes realize optical size.
Merriweather | A fresh of breath air designed for digital reading.
Sans Serif
PT Sans | One of the best Cyrillic fonts out there.
Fira Sans | As an FF Meta fan, I approve of this font. Erik probably won’t though.
Libre Franklin | Looks as fresh today as it did a hundred years ago.
Poppins | A quality geometric design with stellar Devanagari to match!
Lato | Perfect for writing birthday messages or eviction notices.
Inclusive Sans | Designed for accessibility and readability without being boring.
Guggenheim Sans | Yes, we’re talking about the Guggenheim here.
Antonio | When you have a lot to say but little room to say it.
Superfamilies
IBM Plex | Plex is absolutely bursting with personality—a difficult achievement for a super family. They even designed an entire mini site to show this off. Included are Sans, Sans Condensed, Serif, and Mono offerings. I, however, cannot wait for the finished Simplified Chinese release! (The only downside is that some scripts are still under development, so you may need to navigate the bowels of GitHub to download the latest release.)
Roboto | Designed to work as a unified type family for Google’s Android operating system, the Roboto fonts are crafted for extensive digital use. Even the United Nations uses it! It comes in Sans, Sans Condensed, Serif, Slab, and Mono cuts. There’s also the experimental Flex; Try if you dare.
Source | Tried and true, you can’t overlook the Sans, Serif, and Code releases of Adobe’s first open source typeface family.
Noto | Google’s collection of 200+ fonts attempting to support literally every language known to man! The Sans and Serif cuts are great for displaying less-supported scripts on web pages. Also has a Mono version for coding.