The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Free font
Barlow
A free alternative to DIN.
About Barlow
Barlow is Jeremy Tribby's 2017 grotesque, a slightly rounded low-contrast sans drawn from California public signage — highway signs, buses, license plates. That pedigree shows in narrow, evenly stroked letterforms with an engineered, public-information feel and a West Coast softness at the corners. The family runs to 54 styles across three widths and nine weights with italics, including full Condensed and Semi Condensed companions.
The signage origin makes it a direct parallel to DIN, which came out of German road signs, and to Interstate — the same civic-utilitarian brief, a softer finish, and a width system that mirrors Interstate's own. Breadth is the other argument. Three widths make Barlow the best free approximation of Sharp Grotesk's multi-width range, and the condensed cuts cover the space-efficient side of Netflix Sans and the automotive utility of Porsche Next.
- Designer
- Jeremy Tribby
- Released
- 2017
- Available at
- Google Fonts →
Barlow is also a free alternative to…
- DIN → Inspired by California's highway signage — a deliberate parallel to DIN's origins in German road signs. Barlow's narrower letters and even strokes give it the same engineered, public-information feel, with a comprehensive weight and width range.
- Interstate → A slightly rounded grotesque drawn from California public signage — highway signs, buses, license plates — giving it the same civic-utilitarian pedigree as Interstate with a softer, West Coast finish. Comes in three widths, mirroring Interstate's width system.
- Netflix Sans → A slightly rounded low-contrast grotesque with full Condensed and Semi Condensed companion families — a practical match for Netflix Sans's utilitarian, space-efficient side.
- Porsche Next → A slightly rounded low-contrast grotesque inspired by California public signage and license plates — it carries the same automotive utility, and its 54 styles cover full corporate use.
- PT Root UI → A rounded, low-contrast grotesque with the DIN undertone PT Root UI also carries, and the closest match for its slightly mechanical, engineered feel. Barlow is a touch narrower and more relaxed in its curves, and it offers nine weights with italics where PT Root UI stops at four uprights.
- SF Compact → A slightly rounded, low-contrast grotesque whose round letters sit on flat sides, the same squared-off curve treatment that separates SF Compact from SF Pro. Its semi-condensed proportions and open spacing make it the closest match for small-size UI text, though Barlow's corners are a touch softer.
- Sharp Grotesk → A low-contrast grotesk superfamily shipping in three widths and nine weights with italics — the best free approximation of Sharp Grotesk's multi-width breadth, released the same year and equally suited to display and text.
- TT Lakes → A slightly rounded, low-contrast grotesk drawn from Californian signage and licence plates, shipped in regular, semi-condensed and condensed widths. The closest free match for TT Lakes' sign-painting origins and its three-width system, though Barlow is a touch softer and more American than the Finnish functionalist tone of the original.
- Elza → Barlow's round letters are slightly squared, with gently rounded corners that echo the flattened sides on Elza's bowls, and the Condensed and Semi Condensed siblings give you the narrower widths. It is lower in contrast and more informal than Elza, with a softer, less mechanized character.
- JAF Bernini → Barlow comes in regular, Semi Condensed and Condensed widths across many weights. That makes it the closest free match for Bernini's multi-width system. Its forms are rounder and more mechanical than Bernino's open text shapes.
- Tofino → Slightly rounded, squared, gently narrow grotesque forms modeled on California highway signage, the closest match to Tofino's squared-off curves and laid-back mood. It comes in Condensed and Semi Condensed widths too, but its terminals are softer and more signage-like.
Display + body that work together
The shape of a working week
Two thousand years of letterforms boil down to a handful of decisions — width, weight, proportion. Pick a pair you trust, and let the rest take care of itself.
Modern · Editorial Barlow + Crimson Pro
Pages that earn the read
Crisp, even strokes give the display its punch. Quiet serifs underneath stay readable across thousands of words — used together by editors at the kind of paper that still prints corrections.
Editorial · Modern DM Serif Display + Barlow