Public Sans
Dan Williams, Pablo ImpallariSphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Sans-serif · Variable · 9 weights · OFL · Türkçe
Free Franklin Gothic alternatives
Morris Fuller Benton for ATF, 1902, and the American gothic that newspapers and posters have used ever since.
Why people look for a Franklin Gothic alternative
Franklin Gothic reads as American news and advertising, which is precisely why art directors reach for it and precisely why it is licensed rather than free. The condensed weights are the ones people actually want, and they are usually a separate purchase on top of the roman.
What a Franklin Gothic substitute has to get right
A tall x-height, tight apertures and enough weight to hold a headline. The lighter weights of a grotesque are not the thing people mean when they say Franklin Gothic.
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 Franklin
Impallari TypeSphinx of black quartz, judge my vow
Sans-serif · Variable · 9 weights · OFL · Türkçe
Franklin Gothic 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
Franklin Gothic
| Property | Public Sans | Libre Franklin |
|---|---|---|
| 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 | Yes | Yes |
| Italic | Yes | Yes |
| Türkçe | Yes | Yes |
| Other alphabets | Vietnamese | Cyrillic, Cyrillic Extended, Vietnamese |
| Glyphs | 648 | 1,007 |
| Web font | 37 KB Latin cut | 44 KB Latin cut |
Questions
- What is the best free alternative to Franklin Gothic?
- Public Sans — 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 Franklin Gothic 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 Franklin Gothic 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 Franklin Gothic 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.