The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Free font
EB Garamond
A free alternative to Advercase.
About EB Garamond
EB Garamond is Georg Duffner's open-source Garamond revival, drawn from Robert Granjon's sixteenth-century specimens at the Plantin-Moretus Museum. It keeps the warm humanist proportions and gently bracketed serifs of the French Renaissance originals, with a calm color, a modest x-height, full small caps, and a complete italic axis.
Being the most faithful free Garamond makes it the closest match to Sabon — Tschichold's Garamond — and to Minion Pro, which Slimbach drew from the same Renaissance sources. By lineage it is also the nearest free relative to Caslon, and it works as the old-style counterpart to Baskerville's transitional sharpening. Its soft modelling and deep ligature and small-cap support capture the hand-press finery Mrs Eaves chases. Set in all-caps, its capitals carry much of Trajan's classical weight. Best where the register is bookish and classical rather than screen-hardened.
- Designer
- Georg Duffner
- Released
- 2017
- Available at
- Google Fonts →
EB Garamond is also a free alternative to…
- Advercase → Georg Duffner's revival of Claude Garamond's 16th-century romans, the same lineage Apple's advertising face descended from. Closest match for the old-style proportions, bracketed serifs and moderate contrast, though it keeps book-text calm where Advercase pushes a punchier, more condensed advertising posture.
- Baskerville → An adjacent old-style serif from a generation before Baskerville. Shares the warm humanist proportions Baskerville sharpened — useful as the "before" pair when contrasting old-style with transitional in editorial typesetting.
- Caslon Pro → Georg Duffner's revival of Claude Garamont's types, the French old-style that Caslon's Dutch-influenced forms descend from. It gives the same warm, low-contrast book texture with small caps and old-style figures built in, but reads lighter and more calligraphic than Caslon's blunter English cut.
- Caslon → The closest free relative to Caslon by lineage — same old-style English / French Renaissance tradition, same warm humanist proportions, same gentle bracketed serifs. Drawn from 16th-century specimens at Plantin-Moretus.
- Garamond → The most faithful open-source Garamond revival. Drawn by Georg Duffner from Robert Granjon's 16th-century specimens at the Plantin-Moretus Museum, with the closest direct match to historical proportions. OFL-licensed, full italic axis, full small caps.
- Lyon → Georg Duffner's revival of the 1592 Egenolff-Berner specimen, whose italics were cut by Robert Granjon himself, so it draws on the same sixteenth-century source as Lyon. It reads warmer and more historical, with rougher, more literal details where Lyon is crisp and systematized.
- Minion Pro → A faithful revival of the same Renaissance Garalde sources Slimbach studied, with the calm color and classical proportions that make Minion feel bookish. The closest free match in spirit, though its x-height is smaller, so it sets a touch more delicately on screen.
- Mrs Eaves → An older model than Baskerville, but its soft old-style modelling and moderate x-height capture the warm, hand-press quality Mrs Eaves chases better than most strict transitionals. Excellent ligature and small-cap support helps replicate her typographic finery.
- Plantin → A faithful revival of Claude Garamont's sixteenth-century types — the same French Renaissance school Granjon belonged to. Lighter and more delicate than Plantin, but historically the truest relative on this list.
- Sabon → Sabon is Tschichold's Garamond — so the most-faithful Garamond revival is also the closest free Sabon match. Same 16th-century proportions Tschichold drew from, with the variable axis Sabon never had.
- The Seasons → A faithful Garamond revival for the classical, timeless register — the right pick when The Seasons is being used at text sizes rather than display.
- Trajan Pro → When set in all-caps, EB Garamond's capitals capture much of Trajan's classical weight — it lacks the inscriptional sharpness but compensates with full small-caps support and a complete italic axis. Good when one family has to serve display + body.
- Calvino Grande → A faithful revival of Claude Garamond's sixteenth-century roman, the very garalde source Calvino draws on. It is designed for text rather than display, so contrast is lower and spacing looser, but its old-style proportions and calligraphic italics share Calvino's historical grounding and handle long headlines gracefully.
- Coelacanth Display → Georg Duffner's revival of Claude Garamond's 1500s types keeps the bracketed serifs, moderate contrast and humanist rhythm that make Coelacanth feel bookish. It is calmer and less pointed than a Venetian, and its optical sizes top out at 12pt, so it is best where the heading sets a little smaller.
- Trajanus → Georg Duffner's EB Garamond is an oldstyle text face with the long ascenders, calligraphic italic and full weight range that make Trajanus usable for books. It belongs to the later French Garamond branch rather than the Venetian one, so its forms are more refined and its capitals less openly inscriptional.
- Garamond Premier Pro → Georg Duffner's open-source revival of Claude Garamond's romans and Robert Granjon's italics, drawn from the same sixteenth-century sources Slimbach studied. The closest match in letterform and proportion, though it ships in a single optical size and is lighter in colour than Premier Pro's text cuts.
- Minion 3 → A faithful Garamond revival that shares Minion's sixteenth-century roots and its calm, even page colour. It carries more of the original's quirks and a lower x-height, so it reads slightly more historical and a little smaller at the same point size than Minion 3.
- Palatino → Georg Duffner's revival of Claude Garamond's roman from the 1592 Egenolff-Berner specimen, the French old-style that defines the Garalde class. It gives you Palatino's humanist skeleton and elegant italics, but with the smaller x-height and finer detail of true 16th-century type, so it sets lighter and needs a slightly larger size.
- Apple Garamond → Georg Duffner's revival drawn directly from Claude Garamond's sixteenth-century punches, the same source ITC Garamond reinterpreted. It keeps the classical small x-height and long extenders that Tony Stan enlarged, so it reads calmer and more bookish, but it is the most faithful free Garamond for brand text.
- Feijoa → The historical Garalde that Feijoa's classification points back to, revived closely from Claude Garamont's sixteenth-century punches. EB Garamond keeps the crisp, pointed details that Sowersby deliberately smoothed out, so it reads sharper and more classical, but its proportions and text colour are close for book settings.
Display + body that work together
A grammar of empty space
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.
Editorial · Modern EB Garamond + Inter
Letters that hold their nerve
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.
Modern · Editorial Archivo + EB Garamond