The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Free font
Saira
A free alternative to DIN.
About Saira
Saira is a technical sans by Hector Gatti and Omnibus-Type, released in 2018 with a variable width system that runs from tightly compressed to extended. Its curves are flattened, its construction plainspoken and engineered, and it was drawn with screen-rendering accuracy at small sizes in mind. The width axis is the point of the family: hierarchy can come from proportion as much as from weight.
That makes it a natural DIN substitute — the condensed variants track DIN Condensed closely, and the family suits technical interfaces and data-heavy layouts. The width range also reproduces Interstate's signage-style hierarchies, where headline and label have to sit in one voice at different widths. Its squared-off quality lands close to the instrument-panel character of Porsche Next as well. Choose Saira when a layout needs a single engineered sans stretched across many widths.
- Designer
- Hector Gatti / Omnibus-Type
- Released
- 2018
- Available at
- Google Fonts →
- Featured on
- 3 paid font pages
Saira is also a free alternative to…
- DIN → Technical sans with multiple width axes — including condensed variants that closely match DIN Condensed. Designed for screen-rendering accuracy at small sizes, the right pick for technical interfaces and data-heavy layouts.
- Interstate → A sturdy, faintly technical sans with a large width range, useful for reproducing Interstate's signage-style hierarchies. Its plainspoken engineered look sits comfortably in the same register.
- Porsche Next → A technical grotesque with flattened curves and a wide variable-width system, echoing the squared-off, instrument-panel quality of Porsche Next.
Display + body that work together
Letters that hold their nerve
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 Saira + Source Serif 4
Quiet type that does the work
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.