The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Best free alternatives to
Trajanus
The Stempel foundry in Frankfurt cut Trajanus in 1939 from drawings by the American illustrator and letterer Warren Chappell, who travelled to Germany just before the war and saw only first proofs before returning home. The face takes its name from the emperor Trajan: the capitals look to the inscription on his column, the lowercase to Carolingian minuscule, and the whole thing carries a nervous, pen-drawn quality over a classic Venetian skeleton. Linotype now publishes it digitally in roman, italic, bold and bold italic. These free typefaces work the same calligraphic oldstyle register without the license fee.
The closest font to TrajanusThe quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Display + body that work together
Quiet type that does the work
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 Sorts Mill Goudy + Manrope
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.
Modern · Editorial Manrope + Sorts Mill Goudy
Fonts like Trajanus
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Common questions about Trajanus alternatives
- Is Trajanus free?
- No — Trajanus is a commercial typeface from Stempel. Trajanus is a commercial typeface published by Linotype and sold through MyFonts and other licensed resellers; there is no free download. The closest free alternative is Sorts Mill Goudy, available on The League of Moveable Type.
- What font is similar to Trajanus?
- Sorts Mill Goudy is the closest free match. A revival of Frederic Goudy's Goudy Oldstyle, the American calligraphic oldstyle closest in spirit to Chappell's pen-drawn Venetian forms, with a similarly short descender and a lively italic. It is rounder and gentler than Trajanus, without the nervous flicks on f and t or the serifless M and N apexes.
- Can I use Sorts Mill Goudy in commercial projects?
- Yes — Sorts Mill Goudy is published under a free license on The League of Moveable Type and can be used in commercial work. Confirm the license text at the source before shipping.