Radio Canada
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/radio-canada2. Import in App
import '@fontsource-variable/radio-canada/wght.css';3. CSS Usage
body {
font-family: "Radio Canada 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
/* radio-canada-latin-wght-normal */
@font-face {
font-family: "Radio Canada Variable";
font-style: normal;
font-display: swap;
font-weight: 100 900;
src: url(https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/fontsource/fonts/radio-canada:vf@latest/latin-wght-normal.woff2)
format("woff2-variations");
}Background & Story
CBC/Radio-Canada is Canada's national public broadcaster. Their mandate is to inform, enlighten and entertain, in order to strengthen Canadian culture on radio, television and digital platforms.
The Radio-Canada font was created in 2017 by Montreal-based designer and typographer Charles Daoud, in collaboration with Coppers and Brasses and Alexandre Saumier Demers. It was designed specifically for CBC/Radio-Canada as a brand unifying information font for all the Public Broadcaster’s platforms. Fittingly, for a Public Broadcaster, this is a peoples’ font and the humanistic style stands out with distinctive angles and subtle curves. Its x-height ensures excellent legibility and respects digital accessibility standards, making it very effective when used in continuous text.
In 2018, the Radio-Canada font won three awards, in the Font Design category at Communication Arts Typography, Applied Arts Design Annual and at Grand Prix Grafika.
Several optimizations saw the light of day in 2021. The number of supported languages has increased from 106 to 317 Latin languages. In 2023, Jacques Le Bailly (Baron von Fonthausen) expanded the font to include the support of Indigenous languages.
To contribute, see github.com/cbcrc/radiocanadafonts.
To learn more, read You can now use Radio-Canada’s brand typeface: The award-winning variable font comes to Google Fonts (English), Voici Radio-Canada, la police de caractères du diffuseur public canadien, plusieurs fois primée et maintenant disponible sur Google Fonts (French).
Tags & Moods
Subsets
Install
pnpm add @fontsource-variable/radio-canadaDesigned by
Charles Daoud, Coppers and Brasses, Alexandre Saumier Demers, Jacques Le Bailly
Links
License
OFL-1.1