Display serif · Designed by Maren Holt · 2026
Bellweather
A soft-cornered display serif with an optical size axis, from caption sizes up to posters. Twelve styles with true italics.
- Styles
- 12
- Glyphs
- 243
- Axes
- Weight, Optical size
- Formats
- OTF, TTF, WOFF2
Type tester
Click the proof and type. Your text carries over to the other families.
Quietly over the harbor wall
Styles
12 styles, plus optical size in the variable file
- Light300
- Light Italic300 italic
- Regular400
- Italic400 italic
- Medium500
- Medium Italic500 italic
- SemiBold600
- SemiBold Italic600 italic
- Bold700
- Bold Italic700 italic
- Black900
- Black Italic900 italic
Sizes
Regular, from 96 to 11 px
- 96
- 72
- 48
- 32
- 24
- 18
- 14
- 11
Regular · 20/30 px
Bellweather was drawn for book jackets and the headlines inside them. At small sizes the optical axis opens the counters and lowers the contrast; at poster sizes the joins tighten and the serifs grow sharp. The italic is drawn separately, with its own rhythm, so it holds up in a long pull quote.
Italic · 15/23 px
Bellweather was drawn for book jackets and the headlines inside them. At small sizes the optical axis opens the counters and lowers the contrast; at poster sizes the joins tighten and the serifs grow sharp. The italic is drawn separately, with its own rhythm, so it holds up in a long pull quote.
Glyphs
243 glyphs per style; a selection below. Latin: Western, Central and Northern European languages
OpenType features
Off on the left, on on the right. In CSS: font-feature-settings.
Ligatures
ligaCase-sensitive forms
case
Licenses
The tier chosen in the buy box is marked. Full license terms.
Desktop
Install the fonts on computers to set print, documents, logos, images and video.
- Up to 5 computers in one company
- Print, packaging, logos and still images
- Video and broadcast titles
- No limit on print runs
Web
Self-host the WOFF2 files on your own websites and web apps.
- One domain and its subdomains
- Up to 250,000 page views a month
- Files on your own server or CDN
- Staging and preview sites included
App
Embed the fonts inside one mobile, desktop or game app.
- One app title on any platforms
- Fonts compiled into the app bundle
- Up to 50,000 installs; ask beyond that
- Updates to the same title included
About Bellweather
Bellweather began as lettering for a run of poetry covers. The covers needed a serif that looked soft at a distance and still had an edge up close, so the corners are rounded at the outside and sharp where strokes meet.
The optical size axis runs from 9 to 144 points. Set it to the size you are printing at: small sizes get wider spacing, larger x-height and heavier hairlines; large sizes get tighter spacing and finer detail. The web and app files include the axis, so the browser can follow the font size on its own (font-optical-sizing: auto).
The italic is not a slanted roman. It has a single-story a, a looped k and its own spacing, which makes it work for full paragraphs as well as for emphasis.
- Classification
- Display serif
- Styles
- 12 styles, variable
- Designer
- Maren Holt
- Released
- 2026
- Glyphs
- 243
- Languages
- Latin: Western, Central and Northern European languages
- Features
- Ligatures, Case-sensitive forms
- Formats
- OTF, TTF, WOFF2
- Version
- 1.2
Demo font: the tester on this page uses Fraunces (Copyright 2018 The Fraunces Project Authors) under the SIL Open Font License 1.1.