# Playfair Display font > A high-contrast transitional serif for large sizes, variable from Regular 400 to Black 900 with italics. Playfair Display is a high-contrast serif typeface led by Claus Eggers Sørensen and drawn for headlines at large sizes. Playfair Display is a variable font with a weight axis from 400 to 900 and matching italics, giving six named weights and 12 styles. Playfair Display is released under the SIL Open Font License 1.1 and suits editorial titles and branding. ## Facts - Classification: [Serif](https://trendhub.net/fonts/category/serif) - Designed by: Claus Eggers Sørensen - License: SIL Open Font License 1.1 (https://openfontlicense.org/open-font-license-official-text/) - Styles: 12 (Regular 400, Medium 500, SemiBold 600, Bold 700, ExtraBold 800, Black 900; with italics) - Variable font: Yes (wght 400–900) - Glyphs: 1101 - Character sets: cyrillic, latin, latin-ext, vietnamese - Last updated: 2025-09-11 - Official source: https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Playfair+Display - Page: https://trendhub.net/fonts/playfair-display - Tagged for: Headlines, Branding, Editorial, Elegant ## About Playfair Display Playfair Display is a transitional serif typeface designed for display sizes. Its stems are thick, its serifs and joining strokes are hairlines, and letters such as a, c, f, j, r and y end in ball terminals. The design looks to late eighteenth-century printing, when pointed steel pens replaced broad quills; the official notes name John Baskerville and Scotch Roman types as influences while stating that it is not a revival of any single face. The family is a variable font whose weight axis runs from 400 to 900, with six named weights from Regular to Black and an italic for each. The fonts hold 1,101 glyphs, including small capitals, common and discretionary ligatures and old-style numerals, and cover Latin, Cyrillic and Vietnamese. First published in 2011 and substantially updated in 2017, it is licensed under the SIL Open Font License 1.1. ## License SIL Open Font License 1.1. Copyright 2017 The Playfair Display Project Authors (https://github.com/clauseggers/Playfair-Display), with Reserved Font Name "Playfair Display" Allowed: - 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. Summary only, not legal advice. Full text: https://openfontlicense.org/open-font-license-official-text/ ## Where it works - **Magazine and blog headlines**: Thick stems against hairline serifs produce strong contrast at the large sizes the design was made for. - **Pull quotes and standfirsts**: The italic, with its ball terminals, sets a quotation apart from the article around it. - **Fashion, food and hospitality branding**: Weights up to Black 900 let a wordmark go from refined to emphatic within one family. - **Book covers and title pages**: Built-in small capitals and discretionary ligatures give titles and author lines typographic detail without a second font. - **Wedding and event stationery headings**: Regular 400 at large sizes shows the fine hairlines on names and dates. ## Things to know - **Weight starts at 400**: The axis runs from 400 to 900. There is no Light or Thin; the lightest style is Regular. - **Two variable files**: The download holds one variable font for the upright styles and one for the italics, each covering the full weight range. - **Made for large sizes**: The notes describe a display design. In small body text the hairlines become very thin; the later Playfair family adds an optical size axis for that purpose. - **Small caps are inside the fonts**: A separate Playfair Display SC family exists, but the main fonts already contain a full set of small capitals as an OpenType feature. ## FAQs ### Is Playfair Display free for commercial use? Yes. Playfair Display is licensed under the SIL Open Font License 1.1, so it can be used in personal and commercial projects, modified and redistributed. The fonts cannot be sold on their own, and a modified version keeps the same license and may not use the Reserved Font Name Playfair Display without permission. ### Who designed Playfair Display? Claus Eggers Sørensen, who works in Amsterdam, leads the Playfair Display project. The copyright notice names The Playfair Display Project Authors. ### How many weights does Playfair Display have? Playfair Display has six named weights, Regular 400, Medium 500, SemiBold 600, Bold 700, ExtraBold 800 and Black 900, each with an italic, for 12 styles in total. ### Is Playfair Display a variable font? Yes. Playfair Display is a variable font with one axis, weight, running from 400 to 900, in separate upright and italic files. ### Can Playfair Display be used for body text? Playfair Display was designed for large sizes, and its hairlines thin out in small text. For long reading, the official notes point to the newer Playfair family, which has an optical size axis. ### Which languages does Playfair Display support? Playfair Display includes the letters needed for English and other Latin-script languages such as French, German, Turkish, Polish and Vietnamese, as well as Russian, Ukrainian and Bulgarian. --- Source: https://trendhub.net/fonts/playfair-display (trendhub)