Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
9 weights · OFL · Türkçe
Free DIN alternatives
DIN 1451, the lettering the German standards institute fixed in 1931 for road signs, railways and engineering drawings. The families sold as DIN today are revivals and extensions of it.
Why people look for a DIN alternative
The DIN look runs from German motorway signs to a great deal of technology branding, and the commercial families built on it — FF DIN and DIN Next among them — are licensed per weight and per use. The condensed widths people usually want are often a separate purchase, which is why the free descendants of the same idea get so much use.
What a DIN substitute has to get right
Round letters with straight sides, a single-storey g, squared-off dots and a very even rhythm — lettering that looks engineered rather than drawn. A face with open, calligraphic curves has lost the point, however narrow it is.
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.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
9 weights · OFL · Türkçe
DIN 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
DIN
| Property | Barlow | Barlow Condensed |
|---|---|---|
| Licence | OFL-1.1 — free, commercial use allowed | OFL-1.1 — free, commercial use allowed |
| Weights | 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900 | 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900 |
| Variable | No | No |
| Italic | Yes | Yes |
| Türkçe | Yes | Yes |
| Other alphabets | Vietnamese | Vietnamese |
| Glyphs | 694 | 694 |
| Web font | 30 KB Latin cut | 29 KB Latin cut |
Questions
- What is the best free alternative to DIN?
- Barlow — 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 DIN 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 DIN 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 DIN 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.