The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Free font
Cormorant Garamond
A free alternative to Advercase.
About Cormorant Garamond
Cormorant Garamond is Christian Thalmann's display-oriented derivative of the Garamond model, released in 2015 with stroke contrast pushed well past what a text face would tolerate. Refined details and delicate hairlines make it striking at headline sizes and unreliable below them — a display cut in a family better known for body-text work.
As a Garamond stand-in it's a partial one by design, handling the headings while something sturdier handles the paragraphs. It carries the same Garalde ancestry that makes Minion Pro elegant, rendered with more romantic detailing at large sizes, and it runs hotter in contrast than Sabon's body weight. The standard move is to pair it with EB Garamond or Source Serif 4 for a complete display-plus-body system in the Garamond and Sabon idiom.
- Designer
- Christian Thalmann
- Released
- 2015
- Available at
- Google Fonts →
Cormorant Garamond is also a free alternative to…
- Advercase → Christian Thalmann's display-leaning Garamond with tall ascenders, small x-height and sharp, refined details. Captures the elegant, slightly narrow headline feel of Apple's old print ads better than most text Garamonds, but it is lighter and more delicate, so it needs larger sizes to carry the same presence.
- Domaine Display → Extreme contrast and fine, tapering serifs give it the refined, luxury feel Domaine is often used for. It is old-style rather than modern-transitional, so the axis and proportions differ, but at large display sizes the delicacy reads similarly.
- Editorial New → A Garamond-derived display serif with fine, high-contrast strokes and tall, narrow proportions. It echoes the ITC Garamond lineage Editorial New draws on and reads as elegant at large sizes, though it thins out and needs care in body copy.
- Garamond → Christian Thalmann's display-oriented Garamond derivative. Increased stroke contrast and refined details — too contrasty for body text but striking at headline sizes. Pair it with EB Garamond for a complete display + body family.
- Lyon → Christian Thalmann's Garamond interpretation built for large sizes, with high contrast and fine hairlines that echo what Lyon Display does for headlines. It is more delicate and decorative than Lyon, so it suits titles and pull quotes rather than body copy.
- Minion Pro → The same Garalde ancestry pushed toward display — delicate hairlines and romantic detailing that echo Minion's elegance at large sizes. Too light for small body text, so use it for headings over one of the sturdier faces above.
- Reckless → A delicate, high-contrast display serif on old-style bones. It runs finer and more fragile than Reckless, so it shines at large display sizes for headlines and covers; give it generous size and it delivers a similar refined, calligraphic elegance.
- Sabon → Christian Thalmann's display-oriented Garamond derivative. Higher contrast than Sabon's body weight — pair with EB Garamond or Source Serif 4 for a complete display + body family in the Garamond/Sabon idiom.
- Calvino Grande → A display-oriented Garamond revival with the same garalde skeleton, small x-height and sharp, fine serifs that Calvino Grande refines. It is not condensed, so headlines run wider and lighter, but at large sizes it gives the closest flavour of crisp old-style elegance for free.
- Coelacanth Display → A display-sized old-style serif drawn with the same fine hairlines and high contrast that Coelacanth's Display cut takes on at large sizes. It follows Garamond's French Renaissance model rather than Jenson's Venetian one, so the e crossbar is level and the forms a little more refined and less calligraphic.
- Garamond Premier Pro → A Garamond interpretation with the tiny x-height and tall, sharp ascenders of the original display sizes, so it stands in for Premier Pro's Display cut. Far more delicate at text sizes and less practical for long reading than the Caption and Regular opticals.
- Apple Garamond → A display Garamond with sharp hairlines and elegant, slightly narrow letterforms that suit headlines and product names, the jobs Apple Garamond did best. Its x-height is far smaller than ITC Garamond's, so it feels more refined and less squat, and it needs larger sizes to shine.
Display + body that work together
A grammar of empty space
Body type does the heavy lifting. Get it right and the reader never thinks about it; get it wrong and they feel it before they can name what is off.
Editorial · Modern Cormorant Garamond + Manrope
Headlines that read at a glance
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 Archivo + Cormorant Garamond