Playfair Display
Claus Eggers SørensenSphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Serif · Variable · 6 weights · OFL · Türkçe
Free Baskerville alternatives
John Baskerville, Birmingham, 1750s — the transitional serif that sits between the old-style faces and the didones that followed.
Why people look for a Baskerville alternative
Baskerville is out of copyright as a design and thoroughly in copyright as a font file: every modern cutting is somebody's licensed product. The differences between those cuttings are real, so specifying Baskerville is not specifying a file, and an open version that states its own proportions is often the more predictable choice.
What a Baskerville substitute has to get right
Sharp bracketed serifs, near-vertical stress and real contrast, without going as far as a didone. The moment the serifs become flat hairlines at a right angle it has stopped being a Baskerville.
The 3 in this archive
Listed only where the substitution would survive a designer looking at both — a flattering near-match is worse than a short list.
Libre Baskerville
Impallari TypeSphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Serif · Variable · 4 weights · OFL · Türkçe
Baskervville
ANRTSphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Serif · Variable · 4 weights · OFL · Türkçe
Baskerville and its free alternatives, at a glance
- How you get it
- Bought from a foundry under a commercial licence
- Pass it on, embed it or self-host it
- Only as the licence you bought allows
- On a website
- Usually a separate web licence on top
Baskerville
| Property | Playfair Display | Libre Baskerville | Baskervville |
|---|---|---|---|
| Licence | OFL-1.1 — free, commercial use allowed | OFL-1.1 — free, commercial use allowed | OFL-1.1 — free, commercial use allowed |
| Weights | 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900 | 400, 500, 600, 700 | 400, 500, 600, 700 |
| Variable | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Italic | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Türkçe | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Other alphabets | Cyrillic, Cyrillic Extended, Vietnamese | Latin only | Latin only |
| Glyphs | 1,103 | 861 | 707 |
| Web font | 63 KB Latin cut | 51 KB Latin cut | 49 KB |
Questions
- What is the best free alternative to Baskerville?
- Playfair Display — it is the closest match in this archive, and the page above says which shapes the substitution turns on. 3 faces are listed in total, and which of them is right depends on the size you are setting and the mood you want; set your own words in each before choosing.
- Are these Baskerville alternatives free for commercial use?
- Yes. Every font on this site is under a licence that permits commercial use with no fee and no attribution requirement, mostly the SIL Open Font License. That covers paid client work, products you sell, self-hosting on a website, and embedding in an application. The licence file is inside every download.
- Can I use a Baskerville alternative in a logo?
- Yes. An open font licence covers the font software rather than the shapes you set with it, so a logo made with one of these can be trademarked like any other. What you cannot do is claim rights over the typeface itself.
- Will a Baskerville substitute keep my layout the same?
- Only if it is metrically compatible — drawn so every character occupies the same width as the original, which makes a document reflow identically. Very few faces are, and where one is, this site says so on its page. Everything else will look similar and set differently, so a layout built to the original's widths needs checking rather than assuming.