The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Free font
Oswald
A free alternative to Destroyed Aero.
About Oswald
Oswald reworks the Alternate Gothic style for the web: Vernon Adams's 2011 Google Fonts release, a tall, tightly packed condensed sans in seven weights. The ATF original offered far fewer options. The forms are narrow and no-nonsense, drawn to hold their color at headline and, unusually for the genre, at smaller sizes too.
The weight range is what makes it flexible. Against Impact, whose single black is its whole story, the heavier cuts land close while the lighter ones open up an entire condensed headline system. It covers Franklin Gothic Condensed's tightly packed look directly, since Alternate Gothic is that family's condensed cousin, and its middleweight styles handle much of what Knockout is used for. For Druk-flavored headlines that must also survive at small sizes, this is the workhorse choice.
- Designer
- Vernon Adams
- Released
- 2011
- Available at
- Google Fonts →
Oswald is also a free alternative to…
- Destroyed Aero → A reworking of the classic Alternate Gothic model: bold, condensed, low-contrast and tall-capped, which is the skeleton under Destroyed Aero's texture. Oswald is clean and comes in a full weight range, so you add the grunge yourself with a texture mask or layered image.
- Druk Condensed → A condensed gothic reworked for screens, with weights running up to bold and a full lowercase. It delivers the same vertical compression for headlines, but its heaviest weight is still well short of Druk Condensed's Super, and the proportions are moderate rather than extreme, which makes it the more versatile choice for subheads.
- Druk → A reworked Alternate Gothic with seven weights; the workhorse choice when you need Druk-flavored condensed headlines that also survive at smaller sizes.
- Franklin Gothic → A reworking of the Alternate Gothic style — Franklin Gothic's condensed ATF cousin. The right pick when you need the tall, tightly packed headline look of Franklin Gothic Condensed.
- Galgo Condensed → Reworks the Alternate Gothic model for screens with a full weight range from ExtraLight to Bold, so it covers Galgo's Light, Regular and Bold spread. Letterforms are a little wider and less strictly geometric, and it has a complete lowercase and extended language support.
- Impact → A reworking of the Alternate Gothic style for the web, available as a full weight range rather than Impact's single black. The most flexible pick — the heavier weights land close to Impact, the lighter ones give you a whole condensed headline system.
- Knockout → Drawn from Alternate Gothic, the same ATF lineage Knockout revives; seven weights of no-nonsense condensed gothic that cover Knockout's middleweight styles convincingly.
- Graphique → A reworked Alternate Gothic in several weights, giving you a condensed caps headline face with more flexibility than Graphique's single shaded style. It lacks the outline and drop shadow, but in its heavier weights it fills the same narrow poster column convincingly.
- Peristyle → A reworking of the classic Alternate Gothic model, condensed and tall, available as a variable font from ExtraLight to Bold. It covers the same narrow headline role as Peristyle's Semibold to Black, but its strokes are even and grotesque in flavour rather than high-contrast and Deco.
- Trade Gothic → A reworking of the Alternate Gothic model, the compressed American gothic that Trade Gothic Bold Condensed No. 20 shares its register with. It delivers the same tall, tight headline voice for free, but it leans heavier and more uniform, and offers no regular-width companion.
- Champion Gothic → Also descended from Alternate Gothic, redrawn for screen with a full weight range from ExtraLight to Bold. It covers the mid-width Champion Gothic styles well, and its multiple weights partly substitute for the width-based family that Champion offers.
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