Bodoni Moda
Owen EarlSphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Serif · Variable · 6 weights · OFL · Türkçe
Free Bodoni alternatives
Giambattista Bodoni, Parma, late 1700s, and the face that defined what extreme contrast in type looks like.
Why people look for a Bodoni alternative
Bodoni is a family of interpretations rather than one typeface, and the differences between them are the whole point: how far the contrast goes, how thin the hairlines get, how the serifs meet the stem. Every modern cutting is licensed, and the ones with the delicacy people actually want are the expensive ones.
What a Bodoni substitute has to get right
Vertical stress, hairline serifs meeting the stem at a right angle with no bracket at all, and the nerve to keep the thins thin. A bracketed serif here reads as a transitional face wearing the wrong name.
The 2 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 Bodoni
Pablo Impallari, Rodrigo FuenzalidaSphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Serif · Variable · 4 weights · OFL · Türkçe
Bodoni 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
Bodoni
| Property | Bodoni Moda | Libre Bodoni |
|---|---|---|
| Licence | 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 |
| Variable | Yes | Yes |
| Italic | Yes | Yes |
| Türkçe | Yes | Yes |
| Other alphabets | Latin only | Vietnamese |
| Glyphs | 563 | 644 |
| Web font | 83 KB | 35 KB Latin cut |
Questions
- What is the best free alternative to Bodoni?
- Bodoni Moda — it is the closest match in this archive, and the page above says which shapes the substitution turns on. 2 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 Bodoni 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 Bodoni 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 Bodoni 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.