Cairo
Type with Purpose
Good typography guides attention, improves understanding, and makes communication effortless.
The Anatomy of a Typeface
By FontSide · June 2026
Every typeface is a system of decisions — about stroke contrast, x-height, spacing, and rhythm. The best ones feel invisible: you stop seeing the letters and start hearing the voice behind them. That transparency is the hardest thing to design.
A high x-height opens up the counters and makes small text breathe. Tight tracking pulls a headline together; loose tracking gives a caption room to exhale. None of these choices are accidents — they are arguments about how reading should feel.
Uppercase
Lowercase
Numerals
Symbols
Package Manager
The recommended way to use fonts in modern web projects.
1. Install Package
pnpm add @fontsource-variable/cairo 2. Import in App
import '@fontsource-variable/cairo/wght.css'; 3. CSS Usage
body {
font-family: "Cairo Variable", sans-serif;
} Google Fonts CDN
Use Google's CDN to embed the fonts directly via HTML.
HTML <head>
<!-- Please select at least one weight and style --> Fontsource CDN
Skip the build step by adding this directly to your global CSS file.
Global CSS
/* cairo-latin-wght-normal */
@font-face {
font-family: "Cairo Variable";
font-style: normal;
font-display: swap;
font-weight: 100 900;
src: url(https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/fontsource/fonts/cairo:vf@latest/latin-wght-normal.woff2)
format("woff2-variations");
} Background & Story
Cairo is a contemporary multilingual typeface family. Mohamed Gaber extended the Latin typeface family Titillum Web to support the Arabic script, with a design that is based on the Kufi calligraphic style. Now available as a variable font.
Cairo balances classic and contemporary tastes with wide open counters and short ascenders and descenders that minimize length while maintaining easy readability. The lighter weights can be used for body text while the heavier weights are perfect for headlines and display typography. The Arabic component has a wide glyph set that supports the Arabic, Farsi and Urdu languages.
The Cairo project is led by Mohamed Gaber, a type designer based in Cairo, Egypt. To contribute, see github.com/Gue3bara/Cairo
Tags & Moods
Subsets
Install
pnpm add @fontsource-variable/cairo Designed by
Mohamed Gaber, Accademia di Belle Arti di Urbino
Links
License
OFL-1.1