Vollkorn
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/vollkorn2. Import in App
import '@fontsource-variable/vollkorn/wght.css';3. CSS Usage
body {
font-family: "Vollkorn Variable", 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
/* vollkorn-latin-wght-normal */
@font-face {
font-family: "Vollkorn Variable";
font-style: normal;
font-display: swap;
font-weight: 100 900;
src: url(https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/fontsource/fonts/vollkorn:vf@latest/latin-wght-normal.woff2)
format("woff2-variations");
}Background & Story
Vollkorn came into being as the first typeface design by Friedrich Althausen. First published in 2005 under a Creative Commons license, it was soon downloaded thousands of times and used in all kinds of web and print projects.
It intends to be a quiet, modest and high quality text face for bread and butter use. Unlike many text typefaces from the Renaissance period until now, it has dark and meaty serifs and a bouncing and healthy look. It might be used in body copy, or just as well for headlines and titles. »Vollkorn« (pronounced »Follkorn«) is German for »wholemeal« which refers to the old term »Brotschrift«. It stood for the small fonts for every day use in hand setting times.
In May 2020, it was updated to be a Variable Font with a "Weight" axis in both Roman and Italic.
The Vollkorn project is led by Friedrich Althausen, a typeface designer in Germany. To contribute, see github.com/FAlthausen/Vollkorn-Typeface
Tags & Moods
Subsets
Install
pnpm add @fontsource-variable/vollkornDesigned by
Friedrich Althausen
Links
License
OFL-1.1