Free Graphik font alternatives
Designed by Christian Schwartz originally for his own corporate identity under the name Plakat, Graphik is a typeface inspired from the lesser-known Grotesks and Geometrics of the twentieth century.
Released through Commercial Type in 2009, Graphik’s language support was extended in 2015 to cover Greek and Cyrillic, and in 2017 to cover Arabic.
I aimed to include in this article free alternatives with at least same language coverage. You will find fonts that support the following languages and character sets: Latin, Latin Extended, Hebrew, Greek, Greek Extended, Cyrillic, Cyrillic Extended, Vietnamese, Devanganari, Arabic.
Hanken Grotesk
Hanken Grotesk is featured on FontsArena, so please see the font’s page for details and download.
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Rubik
Rubik is a sans serif with slightly rounded corners designed in the Chrome Cube Lab project.
- Language support: Latin, Latin Extended, Hebrew, Cyrillic
- Includes 10 styles (5 weights — Light, Regular, Medium, Bold, Black — plus matching italics)
- License: The font is in Google Fonts Directory, so it’s SIL Open Font License
Nunito Sans
Nunito is a well balanced sans serif typeface, with clear, geometric lines.
- Language support: Latin, Latin Extended, Vietnamese
- Includes 14 styles (7 weights — Extra-Light, Light, Regular, Semi-Bold, Bold, Extra-Bold, Black — plus matching italics)
- License: The font is in Google Fonts Directory, so it’s SIL Open Font License
Questrial
Questrial is a modern sans heavily influenced by Swiss design and Grotesks. It has tabular numbers/figures and great legibility.
- Language support: Latin
- Includes 1 style (7 weight — Regular)
- License: The font is in Google Fonts Directory, so it’s SIL Open Font License
Roboto
Roboto is Google’s flagship typeface and one of my favourite. It features geometric forms, open curves, and much less rigidity than the typical Grotesks.
- Language support: Latin, Latin Extended, Greek, Greek Extended, Cyrillic, Cyrillic Extended, Vietnamese
- Includes 12 styles (6 weights — Thin, Light, Regular, Medium, Bold, Black — plus matching italics)
- License: The font is in Google Fonts Directory, so it’s SIL Open Font License
Arimo
Arimo is a sans serif metrically compatible with Arial. It offers improved on-screen readability and the pan-European WGL character set, and solves the needs of developers looking for width-compatible fonts to address document portability across platforms. Updated with improved hinting and released under the Apache License, version 2.0.
- Language support: Latin, Latin Extended, Hebrew, Greek, Greek Extended, Cyrillic, Cyrillic Extended, Vietnamese
- Includes 4 styles (2 weights — Regular, Bold — plus matching italics)
- License: Apache License, version 2.0
Cambay
Cambay is a libre Devanagari typeface designed to match the Latin Cantarell.
- Language support: Latin, Latin Extended, Devanganari
- Includes 4 styles (2 weights — Regular, Bold — plus matching italics)
- License: The font is in Google Fonts Directory, so it’s SIL Open Font License
Tajawal
Tajawal is a low contrast Latin and Arabic typeface, with modern geometric style.
- Language support: Latin, Arabic
- Includes 7 styles (7 weights — Extra-Light, Light, Regular, Medium, Bold, Extra-Bold, Black)
- License: The font is in Google Fonts Directory, so it’s SIL Open Font License
Muli
Muli is a clean, minimalist sans-serif, designed primarily for use as a display font and headlines, but usable as a text font too.
- Language support: Latin, Latin Extended, Vietnamese
- Includes 14 styles (7 weights — Extra-Light, Light, Regular, Semi-Bold, Bold, Extra-Bold, Black — plus matching italics)
- License: The font is in Google Fonts Directory, so it’s SIL Open Font License
Biryani
Biryani is a libre sans-serif font family with monolinear, geometric style. Currently, it supports Latin Extended and Devangari scripts, meaning that Indian languages like Hindi, Marathi, and Nepali may be set with the fonts, in addition to most Western and Central European languages.
- Language support: Latin, Latin Extended, Devangari
- Includes 7 styles (7 weights — Extra-Light, Light, Regular, Semi-Bold, Bold, Extra-Bold, Black)
- License: The font is in Google Fonts Directory, so it’s SIL Open Font License
