Free DIN font and alternatives

History of DIN typeface

The sans-serif typeface DIN’s name is an acronym for Deutsches Institut für Normung, which translates as German Institute of Standardization. It has a long and rich history that begins way back in the 1900s when the Prussian railways company created a lettering set for its own use. Based on it, the German Institute designed in the 1930s the DIN 1451 typeface, which quickly became standard for road signs and car numbers among others.

DIN 1451 had originally 3 styles, of which 2 are still in use to this day: DIN 1451 Mittelschrift (regular) and DIN 1451 Engschrift (condensed – for use only when space constrains make the usage of Mittelschrift impossible). The third style, Breitschrift (Extended) stopped being used in the 1980s, but can still be found on some older signs.

Fast-forward to the 1990s

Several type foundries created their own DIN variations in the last 3 decades, one of the most popular/well-known variation being FF DIN by FontFont foundry. The variation we used in this article’s featured image is DIN 2014 by ParaType.

Free DIN fonts (Mittelschrift)

The best free alternative for DIN is, well… DIN. 🙂  There are some free variations of DIN, you can download them below.

1. Alte DIN 1451 Mittelschrift Regular

   

   • Language support: Latin, Latin Extended
   • License: SIL Open Font License (OFL) – 100% Free for personal and commercial use

   Download

2. Alte DIN 1451 Mittelschrift Gepraegt

   

   • Language support: Latin, Latin Extended
   • License: SIL Open Font License (OFL) – 100% Free for personal and commercial use

   Download

Free DIN Condensed fonts (Engschrift)

1. OSP DIN

   

   • Language support: Latin
   • License: SIL Open Font License (OFL) – 100% Free for personal and commercial use

   Download

Free DIN alternatives

1. Gidole – Open Source Modern DIN

   

   • Language support: Latin, Latin Extended, Greek, Cyrillic (work in progress, see github repo)
   • 2 font files (2 styles)
   • License: Dual licensed (SIL Open Font License (OFL) and MIT License (MIT)) – 100% Free for personal and commercial use

   Download

2. Rubik

   

   • Language support: Latin, Latin Extended, Hebrew, Cyrillic, Cyrillic Extended
   • 10 styles
   • License: Apache License, Version 2.0 – 100% Free for personal and commercial use

   Download

3. Roboto

   

   • Language support: Latin, Latin Extended, Cyrillic, Cyrillic Extended, Vietnamese, Greek, Greek Extended
   • 12 styles
   • License: Apache License, Version 2.0 – 100% Free for personal and commercial use

   Download

Free DIN Condensed alternatives

1. Roboto Condensed

   

   • Language support: Latin, Latin Extended, Cyrillic, Cyrillic Extended, Vietnamese, Greek, Greek Extended
   • 6 styles
   • License: Apache License, Version 2.0 – 100% Free for personal and commercial use

   Download