Fraunces

Fraunces is a free open-source display serif by Undercase Type — Phaedra Charles and Flavia Zimbardi — inspired by early 20th-century display typefaces in the vein of Cooper Old Style and the same Art Nouveau lineage that produced ITC Vintage, the commercial font used on the Godmothered (2020) movie poster. Fraunces is a full variable font with Optical Size, Weight, Softness, and Wonky axes, giving designers unusual control over the voice of the type.

At larger display sizes, Fraunces picks up the warm, slightly irregular character of early 1900s magazine ad typography — the exact territory ITC Vintage was built to inhabit. The WONK axis exaggerates Fraunces's bracketed serifs, swashes, and quirks in a way that captures the playful elegance of early display lettering, making it a particularly apt free alternative for projects that need the charm of pre-digital headline serifs.

Fraunces is licensed under the SIL Open Font License and is available through Google Fonts. The full variable font is included here with all weights (Thin through Black) plus optical sizes from 9pt text to 144pt display, making it a practical drop-in replacement for many commercial old-style display serifs.