Hairline serifs against heavy stems, cut for a Duke's private press. The extreme contrast only printed well on smooth paper, and it still signals luxury.
Download Playfair Display, free ↗Google FontsBodoni itself is licensed. Playfair Display is the closest free face, free for personal and commercial work under the Open Font License.
01Set it yourself
Set in Playfair DisplayLoading the face
Tryor click the specimen and type your own.
Weight
Case
Dress it in a style
02Put it to work
Your words from the specimen, set in Playfair Display in the formats a project actually needs, in the colours you picked above.
yourstudio.com
BodoniWorkAboutContact
Bodoni
We design identities, websites and campaigns for people who care how things feel. This is the paragraph your headline sits on, set in Crimson Text.
Start a project →
Tip. Headline in Playfair Display, standing in for Bodoni, body copy in Crimson Text. Copy the CSS from the specimen above and the headline is ready to paste into your site.
03Every character
AU+0041 · Playfair Display 700
72pxBodoni
48pxBodoni
32pxBodoni
20pxThe quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog, 1234567890.
14pxThe quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog, 1234567890.
04The free stand-in: Playfair Display
Why Playfair Display. High-contrast didone with hairline serifs and vertical stress. Bodoni itself is a licensed typeface, so everything on this page is set in Playfair Display, which is free to use on the web and in print.
Playfair Display, on its own. A high-contrast didone with hairline serifs. The fashion-masthead face.
If Bodoni is installed on your computer, an A/B key appears in the specimen above so you can compare the two.