The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Bodoni vs Times New Roman
Two serif classics from opposite ends of the tradition. Bodoni is a late-eighteenth-century Didone from Giambattista Bodoni, all razor hairlines and vertical stress, while Times New Roman is the 1932 newspaper face Stanley Morison and Victor Lardent made for The Times, built to pack legible text onto cheap newsprint.
Bodoni is a commercial font, so it is shown here in Libre Bodoni, its closest free alternative. All free alternatives to Bodoni → Times New Roman is a commercial font, so it is shown here in Tinos, its closest free alternative. All free alternatives to Times New Roman →
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
- Bodoni pairs extreme thick-to-thin contrast with flat, unbracketed serifs, so hairlines can vanish and the text 'dazzles' at small sizes unless you use an optical size cut for text.
- Times New Roman is a transitional face based on Plantin, with a large x-height, short descenders and a relatively condensed set width, tuned for dense, economical body text.
- Bodoni is a family of revivals rather than one font: ATF (Morris Fuller Benton, 1909), Bauer (Heinrich Jost, 1926) and ITC (Sumner Stone, with 6, 12 and 72-point optical sizes) each read differently.
- Times New Roman ships with every Windows release since 3.1 and with Office, so it costs nothing on those systems, but web and embedding use still means a Monotype licence; the major digital Bodonis are paid Monotype and ITC releases.
- Bodoni's sharp geometry lives on glossy paper and in fashion mastheads at display sizes, while Times New Roman's quiet forms were designed to disappear into running text.
Bodoni
Reach for Bodoni when you want high-contrast glamour at large sizes — magazine covers, luxury branding, posters — and can afford an optical size and a licence.
Times New Roman
Reach for Times New Roman for long, dense body copy — reports, manuscripts, academic and legal documents — where it is the expected, pre-installed default.