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Karla

A grotesque sans by Jonny Pinhorn with a slightly quirky texture, variable from ExtraLight 200 to ExtraBold 800.

Sans Serif 14 styles · variable by Jonny Pinhorn OFL

Download family 178 KB Type your own text

Karla is a grotesque sans serif family by Jonny Pinhorn. Karla is a variable font whose weight axis runs from ExtraLight 200 to ExtraBold 800, giving seven weights with italics, 14 styles in all, and it holds 459 glyphs for Latin and Latin Extended. It is released under the SIL Open Font License 1.1 and suits body text and interfaces.

Karla font preview card
Preview drawn by trendhub from the font files.
Designer
Jonny Pinhorn
Classification
Sans Serif
License
SIL Open Font License 1.1
Styles
14 7 weights, with italics
Variable font
Yes Weight 200–800
Glyphs
459
Languages checked
24 see the list
Last updated
version 2.004;gftools[0.9.33]
Used for
Body textInterfacesBranding

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

Try Karla

Sample text

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

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

Weights and styles

  • ExtraLight 200Karla ExtraLight ExtraLight Italic
  • Light 300Karla Light Light Italic
  • Regular 400Karla Regular Italic
  • Medium 500Karla Medium Medium Italic
  • SemiBold 600Karla SemiBold SemiBold Italic
  • Bold 700Karla Bold Bold Italic
  • ExtraBold 800Karla ExtraBold ExtraBold Italic

Karla 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 Karla

Karla is a grotesque sans serif typeface with an even stroke and a loosely spaced, slightly irregular texture. The round letters are a little narrow, the letters stand well apart, and in the specimen the lowercase q finishes with a short flick to the right instead of a plain stem. Jonny Pinhorn designed the family, which has been expanded into a variable font. The weight axis runs from 200 to 800, giving seven weights from ExtraLight to ExtraBold, each with an italic, 14 styles in all, in two variable files. The character set has 459 glyphs covering Latin and Latin Extended, with the accented letters for Western, Central and South-Eastern European languages such as Polish, Hungarian, Romanian and Croatian. Karla was added to Google Fonts in 2012, and the font files are version 2.004.

Where Karla works

Blog and article text
Open spacing and an even stroke keep paragraphs comfortable on screen in Regular and Medium.
Interface copy
Seven weights from ExtraLight to ExtraBold give labels, helper text and headings without leaving the family.
Portfolios and small brand sites
The irregular details, such as the flicked q, give plain text some personality without a display face.
Sites in European languages
Latin Extended covers Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Romanian, Croatian and Turkish alongside Western European languages.

Glyphs

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

Latin and Latin Extended characters in the preview subset; the complete family has 459 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 2019 The Karla Project Authors (https://github.com/googlefonts/karla)

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 Karla

Bodoni Moda Serif

Karla is sans serif and Bodoni Moda is serif (6 weights): the difference in structure separates headings from text.

Arbutus Slab Slab Serif

Karla is sans serif and Arbutus Slab is slab serif (1 weight): the difference in structure separates headings from text.

Anonymous Pro Monospace

Anonymous Pro is a monospace family (2 weights) for code and figures next to Karla as the text face.

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 Karla 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: "Karla";
  src: url("/assets/fonts/Karla-Italic-VariableFont_wght.ttf") format("truetype");
  font-weight: 200 800;
  font-style: italic;
  font-display: swap;
}
@font-face {
  font-family: "Karla";
  src: url("/assets/fonts/Karla-VariableFont_wght.ttf") format("truetype");
  font-weight: 200 800;
  font-style: normal;
  font-display: swap;
}

body {
  font-family: "Karla", sans-serif;
}

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

HTML, Google Fonts

Things to know

The range is 200 to 800
Karla has no Thin 100 and no Black 900. The lightest style is ExtraLight, the heaviest ExtraBold.
Latin only
Vietnamese, Cyrillic and Greek are not among the character sets.
Two variable files
Roman and italic are separate variable fonts, each with the full weight range.

FAQs

Is Karla free for commercial use?

Karla is licensed under the SIL Open Font License 1.1. That license permits personal and commercial use, modification and redistribution, but the fonts cannot be sold on their own and derivatives have to stay under the same license.

Who designed Karla?

Karla was designed by Jonny Pinhorn. The copyright notice in the license names The Karla Project Authors.

How many weights does Karla have?

Karla has seven weights, from ExtraLight 200 to ExtraBold 800, each with an italic, which makes 14 styles.

Is Karla a variable font?

Yes. Karla is a variable font with a weight axis from 200 to 800.

Which languages does Karla support?

Karla includes the letters needed for English and other Latin-script languages such as French, German, Polish, Hungarian, Romanian and Turkish. It does not cover Vietnamese, Cyrillic or Greek.

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Collections with Karla

  • Fonts for résumés and CVs

    Readable open-license serif and sans-serif families for a one- or two-page CV, with the weights and italics a document needs.

  • Grotesque sans-serif fonts

    Grotesque and neo-grotesque sans-serif families: plain, sturdy, slightly irregular workhorses for branding, editorial design and interfaces.

  • Fonts that support Turkish

    Open-license families that contain every letter of the Turkish alphabet, including dotted and dotless i, across text, display and script styles.

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