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Baskervville

A revival of a French Baskerville-style type sold from 1815, digitised at ANRT, with old-style figures.

Serif 8 styles · variable by ANRT OFL

Download family 248 KB Type your own text

Baskervville is a serif typeface from ANRT that revives Jacob's early nineteenth-century version of Baskerville's type, sold by the Berger-Levrault foundry from 1815. Baskervville is a variable font with a weight axis from 400 to 700, giving Regular, Medium, SemiBold and Bold with italics. It is released under the SIL Open Font License 1.1 and suits books and editorial text.

Baskervville font preview card
Preview drawn by trendhub from the font files.
Designer
ANRT
Classification
Serif
License
SIL Open Font License 1.1
Styles
8 4 weights, with italics
Variable font
Yes Weight 400–700
Glyphs
707
Languages checked
24 see the list
Last updated
version 1.100
Used for
Body textEditorialElegant

Official source: Google Fonts. Facts on this page were read from the font files and the source’s published data.

Try Baskervville

Sample text

Type over the sample to test your own words. The preview loads a Latin subset of Baskervville; the download contains the complete files.

Baskervville font specimen: alphabet, numerals and weights
Baskervville specimen: alphabet, numerals and weights. Image drawn by trendhub from the font files.

Weights and styles

  • Regular 400Baskervville Regular Italic
  • Medium 500Baskervville Medium Medium Italic
  • SemiBold 600Baskervville SemiBold SemiBold Italic
  • Bold 700Baskervville Bold Bold Italic

Baskervville is a variable font: the download holds the whole weight range in one file per style, and the named weights above are positions on that range.

About Baskervville

Baskervville is a serif typeface that digitises a French type of the early nineteenth century: Jacob's interpretation of Baskerville's letters, which the Berger-Levrault foundry distributed from 1815 under a name spelt with a w. According to the project notes, the roman stays close to Baskerville's own types while the italic moves towards the later modern manner, so the family records a shift from transitional to modern style. The specimen shows strong contrast between thick and thin strokes, bracketed serifs, a Q with a sweeping tail and old-style figures that rise and fall like lowercase letters. Baskervville is a variable font with a weight axis from 400 to 700 and eight styles. It has 707 glyphs for Latin and Latin Extended. ANRT students designed it in 2017 under the direction of Charles Mazé, with development and production by Rosalie Wagner.

Where Baskervville works

Book interiors
Old-style figures and a true italic, both visible in the specimen and the style list, sit quietly inside running text.
Long-form articles and essays
Regular and Medium carry paragraphs, with SemiBold and Bold reserved for headings and run-in titles.
Academic and literary publishing
The design reproduces a historical type from 1815, which suits editions, journals and catalogues with a classical tone.
Pull quotes and titles
The contrast between thick stems and fine hairlines becomes a feature when the type is set large.
Formal stationery and programmes
A serif with bracketed serifs and an elegant italic gives names and dates a traditional look.

Glyphs

!"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~¡¢

Latin and Latin Extended characters in the preview subset; the complete family has 707 glyphs.

Language support

The family contains the core letters these languages are written with:

  • English
  • French
  • German
  • Spanish
  • Portuguese
  • Italian
  • Dutch
  • Swedish
  • Norwegian
  • Danish
  • Finnish
  • Icelandic
  • Catalan
  • Turkish
  • Polish
  • Czech
  • Slovak
  • Hungarian
  • Romanian
  • Croatian
  • Slovenian
  • Lithuanian
  • Latvian
  • Estonian

Character sets found in the files: latin, latin-ext. The language list is a check of required letters against the font, not a promise of typographic quality in each language.

License

SIL Open Font License 1.1Copyright 2018 The Baskervville Project Authors (https://github.com/anrt-type/ANRT-Baskervville)

What the license allows

  • Use the fonts in personal and commercial work, in print, on the web and in apps.
  • Modify the fonts and build new versions from them.
  • Redistribute the fonts, on their own or bundled with software, as long as the license text and copyright notice go with them.

Conditions

  • The fonts cannot be sold by themselves.
  • A modified version must stay under the same license and cannot use a Reserved Font Name without the copyright holder's permission.
  • The authors' names cannot be used to promote a modified version without permission.

This is a short summary, not legal advice. The license text decides: read the full OFL text. A copy is included in the download.

Fonts that pair with Baskervville

Armata Sans Serif

Baskervville is serif and Armata is sans serif (1 weight): the difference in structure separates headings from text.

Lekton Monospace

Lekton is a monospace family (2 weights) for code and figures next to Baskervville as the text face.

Cairo Sans Serif

Baskervville is serif and Cairo is sans serif (8 weights): the difference in structure separates headings from text.

Suggestions come from simple rules on the records: a contrasting classification and enough weights to carry body text. They are a starting point, not a verdict.

Use Baskervville on the web

Download the family and host the files on your own site, then declare them in CSS. Please do not link to the files on trendhub.net: preview files here are subsets and their addresses change.

CSS, self-hosted
@font-face {
  font-family: "Baskervville";
  src: url("/assets/fonts/Baskervville-Italic-VariableFont_wght.ttf") format("truetype");
  font-weight: 400 700;
  font-style: italic;
  font-display: swap;
}
@font-face {
  font-family: "Baskervville";
  src: url("/assets/fonts/Baskervville-VariableFont_wght.ttf") format("truetype");
  font-weight: 400 700;
  font-style: normal;
  font-display: swap;
}

body {
  font-family: "Baskervville", serif;
}

Or load it from the official source. Google Fonts serves Baskervville with this markup:

HTML, Google Fonts

Things to know

Figures are old-style
The numerals in the specimen have ascenders and descenders. They blend into text but do not line up at capital height.
Weights from Regular to Bold
The weight axis covers 400 to 700; there is no light weight and nothing heavier than Bold.
Latin only
The fonts cover Latin and Latin Extended. Cyrillic, Greek and Vietnamese are not included.

FAQs

Is Baskervville free for commercial use?

Yes, under the SIL Open Font License 1.1. Baskervville may be used in personal and commercial projects, modified and redistributed; it cannot be sold by itself, and a modified version keeps the same license.

Who designed Baskervville?

Baskervville was designed in 2017 by six ANRT students, Rosalie Wagner, Tanguy Vanlaeys, Rafael Ribas, Morgane Pierson, Rémi Forte and Alexis Faudot, directed by Charles Mazé.

Why is Baskervville spelled with two v's?

Baskervville revives a type that Jacob produced and that was sold as a Baskerville-like face under a name written with a w in place of the v.

How many weights does Baskervville have?

Baskervville has four named weights, Regular 400, Medium 500, SemiBold 600 and Bold 700, each with an italic, for eight styles.

Is Baskervville a variable font?

Yes. Baskervville is a variable font with one axis, weight, from 400 to 700, in separate roman and italic files.

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