Libre Franklin

A free alternative to Franklin Gothic

Impallari Type · 2016 · OFL-1.1 · Variable

An interpretation of Morris Fuller Benton's Franklin Gothic, the American gothic that has been setting newspaper headlines for a century, expanded here to nine weights and an italic the original never had. Impallari Type kept the slightly irregular, hand-cut quality of the early drawings instead of smoothing it into a modern grotesque, which is what stops it reading as a sterile revival. Public Sans, also in this archive, is descended from this typeface and is the quieter of the two.

Variable · 199 KB · 2 files

All weights in one file, for Figma, Illustrator, InDesign and the web.

Static · 999 KB · 18 files

One file per weight, works everywhere including older Word and Photoshop.

The license file is inside both zips.

Alphabets

Click the text above to set it in your own words.

Weight — 400

Specification

Designer
Impallari Type
Foundry
Released
2016
Category
Sans-serif
Alternative to
Franklin Gothic
License
OFL-1.1
Commercial use
Allowed
Good for
Body text, Headlines, Editorial, User interfaces
Weights
100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900
Styles
Normal, Italic
Variable
Yes
Glyphs
1,007
Languages
Latin, Latin Extended, Turkish, Cyrillic, Cyrillic Extended, Vietnamese
Download size
199 KB

Size ladder

96

Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow

64

Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow

40

Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow

24

Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow

16

Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow

12

Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow

Characters

Uppercase

  • A
  • B
  • C
  • D
  • E
  • F
  • G
  • H
  • I
  • J
  • K
  • L
  • M
  • N
  • O
  • P
  • Q
  • R
  • S
  • T
  • U
  • V
  • W
  • X
  • Y
  • Z

Lowercase

  • a
  • b
  • c
  • d
  • e
  • f
  • g
  • h
  • i
  • j
  • k
  • l
  • m
  • n
  • o
  • p
  • q
  • r
  • s
  • t
  • u
  • v
  • w
  • x
  • y
  • z

Numerals

  • 0
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 7
  • 8
  • 9

Punctuation & symbols

  • .
  • ,
  • :
  • ;
  • !
  • ?
  • '
  • "
  • (
  • )
  • [
  • ]
  • {
  • }
  • /
  • \
  • |
  • -
  • _
  • @
  • #
  • $
  • %
  • &
  • *
  • +
  • =
  • <
  • >
  • ~
  • ^
  • `
  • £
  • ¥
  • ©
  • ®
  • °
  • §

Use it on the web

You serve the file yourself. Nothing depends on this site staying up, and you get the whole character set — all Latin, Latin Extended, Turkish, Cyrillic, Cyrillic Extended, Vietnamese.

@font-face {
  font-family: 'Libre Franklin';
  /* The download contains .ttf files. Put yours wherever you serve static
     files from and point this at it. Converting to .woff2 first cuts the
     size by roughly 60% and every current browser supports it. */
  src: url('/fonts/libre-franklin.woff2') format('woff2');
  font-weight: 100 900;
  font-style: normal;
  font-display: swap;
}

body {
  font-family: 'Libre Franklin', sans-serif;
}

License

OFL-1.1

You may use, modify and redistribute this font, including in commercial work. You may not sell the font file on its own, and any modified version must be released under the same license and under a different name.

Commercial use allowed

Designed by Impallari Type

Copyright 2020 The Libre Franklin Project Authors (https://github.com/googlefonts/Libre-Franklin)

Read the full license text · What these licenses mean

The license file is included inside the download.

Questions

Is Libre Franklin free for commercial use?
Yes. Libre Franklin is released under the SIL Open Font License 1.1, which allows commercial use with no fee and no attribution requirement. You can use it in client work, in products you sell, on the web and in print. The one thing you may not do is sell the font file on its own. The licence is inside the download.
Can I use Libre Franklin in a logo?
Yes. The licence covers the font software, not the artwork you make with it, so a logo set in Libre Franklin belongs to you — including if you later register it as a trademark. You do not need permission and you do not owe anything to Impallari Type. What the licence stops you doing is redistributing the font file itself as a product.
How do I install Libre Franklin?
Download the zip and unzip it. On a Mac, select the 2 font files inside and open them, then press Install Font. On Windows, select them, right-click and choose Install. Restart any application that was already open before it will show up. Libre Franklin is a variable font: those files carry all 9 weights at once. Some older software — Word, Canva, and Photoshop before 2018 — only reads the first weight and will show it as Regular. If that happens, use the Static download on this page instead: it has 18 ordinary files, one per weight, and works everywhere.
Does Libre Franklin support Turkish?
Yes. Libre Franklin includes the characters Turkish needs that plain Latin does not — the dotless ı, the dotted İ, and ğ, ş, ü, ö and ç in both cases. This was checked against the font file itself, not assumed from the fact that it covers Latin.
Does Libre Franklin support Latin, Latin Extended, Turkish, Cyrillic, Cyrillic Extended and Vietnamese?
Yes. Libre Franklin covers Latin, Latin Extended, Turkish, Cyrillic, Cyrillic Extended and Vietnamese, across 1,007 glyphs. Anything outside those alphabets is not included — the character map further up this page shows exactly what you get.

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