The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Free font
DM Serif Display
A free alternative to Bodoni.
About DM Serif Display
DM Serif Display is Colophon Foundry's high-contrast display serif for Google Fonts, released in 2018 — Didone bones with rounder, friendlier curves than a strict revival. It ships in Regular and Italic only, which fixes its role precisely: a headline face rather than a type system, and slightly more idiosyncratic than a period-faithful Bodoni or Didot.
That softness is the point of difference. It gives editorial layouts Bodoni's elegance in a contemporary voice, and it supplies the fashion-magazine contrast associated with Didot without the severity. At large headline and logo sizes it also works as a Recoleta stand-in, trading Recoleta's slab warmth for a friendlier display presence in the same high-impact role. Use it for titles and covers, and pick something else for the running text underneath.
- Designer
- Colophon Foundry
- Released
- 2018
- Available at
- Google Fonts →
DM Serif Display is also a free alternative to…
- Bodoni → Colophon Foundry's contemporary display serif with high contrast in the Bodoni / Didone register. Slightly more idiosyncratic than a strict revival — works well for editorial layouts that want Bodoni's elegance with a modern voice.
- Chronicle Display → A clean, high-contrast modern serif tuned for large sizes and free for commercial use without fuss. Less nuanced than Chronicle across weights, but a dependable workhorse when you need a single sharp display serif for headings.
- Didot → A high-contrast display serif with rounder, friendlier curves than a strict Didot — the fashion contrast with a contemporary softness. Regular and italic only, so it is a headline face, not a system.
- Recoleta → A high-impact display serif useful as a Recoleta stand-in for large headline and logo settings; rounder and softer than typical Didones, giving a friendly display presence. Best for the headline role.
- Rasbern → Colophon's single-weight display serif pairs heavy strokes with very fine hairlines, close to Rasbern's Bold and ExtraBold used for headlines. It comes only as one weight with an italic, so it covers the masthead job but not the text-friendly lighter end of the family.
- Normandia → A heavy, high-contrast Didone-flavoured display serif in roman and italic, close to Normandia's mass and sharp hairline serifs. It is drawn with a more modern, sturdier feel and lacks the calligraphic undertone that gives Butti's face its particular character.
- Butler → A single-weight, high-contrast display serif with a dark, slightly condensed color that lands near Butler Bold at headline sizes. Its proportions are more compact and its serifs softer; it offers no weight range, so it suits one-size display use.
Display + body that work together
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.
Display · Editorial DM Serif Display + EB Garamond
Pages that earn the read
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.
Display · Editorial DM Serif Display + Lora