Calama

Name: Calama
Author: Ben Karamyan

Calama delivers clean, contemporary letterforms optimized for digital interfaces and modern design systems.

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Sans Serifby Ben Karamyan86% Accessible

Characters846

Glyphs1,015

Typography Tools

Best Ways to Use Calama

Best Font Pairings for Calama

TypeSmith curates 3 expert font pairings for Calama, including combinations with ChanticleerRoman, Bemos and Dogtective.

Each pairing includes accessibility ratings, expert reasoning, and usage recommendations for web and print design.

Explore 3 Pairings for Calama

Test Calama Font Pairings Live

TypeSmith's interactive testing tool lets you preview Calama with any font combination in real-time, optimized for sans serif characteristics.

Adjust font sizes, weights, and see live typography specimens including editorial layouts, code editors, and UI components.

Test Calama Pairings Live

In Context

Calama Specimen Gallery

EditorialUI ComponentsPosterWordmark

Calama Editorial Specimen

Calama in Editorial Context

Calama is a sans serif typeface by Ben Karamyan suited for editorial layouts and long-form reading.

Ben Karamyan

Typeface Designer • Sans Serif

Calama demonstrates editorial readability through balanced proportions and consistent stroke weight. As a sans serif typeface, it delivers clear letterforms that sustain reader engagement across extended passages of text.

The weight range of Calama supports typographic hierarchy within editorial layouts. Headline weights establish visual anchors while lighter weights maintain comfortable reading rhythm in body text columns.

Designed by Ben Karamyan, Calama balances personality with function — providing enough character to establish visual identity without compromising the legibility that editorial contexts demand.

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Calama Typography

A sans serif typeface for UI components.

Active2 weights available

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Calama Specimen

Calama

Calama is a sans serif typeface by Ben Karamyan built for display contexts.

2 WeightsSans Serif Typeface

Available on TypeSmith

Wordmark Explorations

Calama

CALAMA

CALAMATYPE

Tagline Pairings

Calama— sans serif typeface

CalamaBy Ben Karamyan

CalamaTYPE

Editorial

Magazine-style headline and body text layout

Character Set

Calama Glyphs & Characters

Size48

Showing 62 of 187 charactersDouble-click to copy • Click for details

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 0123456789

Heading Examples

Body Text Table

Body Copy

Body Text with Calama

TypeSmith provides optimized body text specifications for Calama, including recommended sizes, line heights, and letter spacing for long-form content. These settings ensure maximum readability across devices and screen sizes.

Calama demonstrates exceptional body text performance with balanced proportions and consistent stroke widths that enhance readability across paragraph lengths.

When setting Calama for body copy, TypeSmith recommends these optimized specifications. The carefully tuned metrics ensure comfortable reading at extended lengths while maintaining the typeface's distinctive character.

Calama small text sizes retain legibility through well-defined letterforms. Caption and footnote applications benefit from the font's clear x-height and open counters.

Element	Weight	Size	Line Height	Tracking	Preview
Body Text	Regular	16px	24px	0.5px	Calama delivers excellent readability for body copy
Italicized	Regular Italic	16px	24px	0.5px	Calama italic provides elegant emphasis
Bold	Bold	16px	24px	0.5px	Calama bold creates strong visual hierarchy
Small Caps	Regular	16px	24px	0.5px	Calama typography specimen
Secondary Text	Medium	14px	20px	0.5px	Calama typography specimen

.your-class { font-family: 'Calama'; }

Quick Start

How to Embed Calama in Your Project

HTML Link Tag

Add to your <head> section

<link href="https://fonts.bunny.net/css?family=Calama:400,700&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">

CSS @import

Add at top of your stylesheet

@import url('https://fonts.bunny.net/css?family=Calama:400,700&display=swap');

CSS @font-face

Self-host the font files

@font-face {
  font-family: 'Calama';
  src: url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Calama:wght@400;700&display=swap');
  font-display: swap;
}

Implementation

CSS Code Examples

Standard CSS

css

Apply directly to any CSS class or selector.

 1.my-text {
 2  font-family: 'Calama', sans-serif;
 3  font-weight: 400;
 4}

SCSS Variable

scss

Define once, use throughout your stylesheet.

 1$font-primary: 'Calama', sans-serif;
 2
 3.my-text {
 4  font-family: $font-primary;
 5}

Tailwind CSS

config

Configure once, apply with utility classes.

 1// tailwind.config.js
 2module.exports = {
 3  theme: {
 4    extend: {
 5      fontFamily: {
 6        'calama': ['Calama', 'sans-serif'],
 7      },
 8    },
 9  },
10}
11
12// Usage in HTML
13<p class="font-calama">Your text here</p>

About

Calama Background & Features

Ben Karamyan

Sans Serif

Open Source

Calama typeface delivers condensed, rounded forms with Cyrillic support through efficient construction suited to friendly space-conscious applications. Ben Karamyan's design creates vertical rhythm with approachable character for packaging, navigation, and constrained layouts. The rounded terminals add warmth while condensed proportions maximize content. Calama's friendly aesthetic appeals to consumer products, lifestyle brands, and accessible digital interfaces. Pair with a wider text face for comfortable extended reading.

Calama was created by Ben Karamyan. The typeface shows dedication to typographic detail, visible in its letterform construction and optical balance.

As a Sans Serif typeface in the Vox-ATypI Lineal classification, Calama features no serif extensions on stroke terminals and stroke contrast ranging from monolinear to subtly modulated. These optical characteristics make it well-suited for wayfinding, signage, and information design.

Calama is available in a single weight, offering focused typographic consistency for both digital and print applications, with 3 font pairings curated. Extended language support spanning Cyrillic, Greek, and Latin Extended ensures reliable rendering across global audiences.

Calama

Typography Judgment

Expert Analysis of Calama

TypeSmith evaluates every font across classification, accessibility, and design heritage. This analysis helps designers understand Calama's strengths and ideal use cases before committing to a typography decision.

Classification

Sans Serif analysis. TypeSmith classifies Calama within the Lineal (Grotesque, Neo-grotesque, Geometric, Humanist) tradition, characterized by No serif extensions on stroke terminals and Stroke contrast ranging from monolinear to subtly modulated. The first commercially successful sans-serifs appeared in the 1810s-1830s as display types. Key technical strength: widest variable-font support with weight and width axes.

Accessibility

Readability assessment (grade: 86). Calama maintains legibility across a range of sizes and rendering environments. Humanist sans-serifs offer the best body-text readability in the category.

Design Heritage

Designed by Ben Karamyan. The designer's attention to stroke consistency and typographic color produces a Sans Serif with a single focused weight suited to both digital and print workflows.

Overview

About Calama

Calama is classified as a Lineal typeface, rooted in the tradition where the first commercially successful sans-serifs appeared in the 1810s-1830s as display types. Its distinctive no serif extensions on stroke terminals and stroke contrast ranging from monolinear to subtly modulated make it well-suited for wayfinding, signage, and information design. TypeSmith indexes Calama in a single weight variant and 3 curated font pairings.

Font Pairings Available

3 curated pairings for Calama

View Pairings

Explore More

Typefaces Like Calama

View all fonts

TypeSmith identifies 5 fonts with similar visual characteristics to Calama based on classification, x-height ratio, and stroke weight. These alternatives maintain the same typographic personality while offering different weight options and language support.

Inclusive Design

Accessibility & Usability

Accessibility Score

Excellent Accessibility

Using Calama Accessibly

Calama scores in the excellent accessibility tier, making it well-suited for body text, UI labels, and long-form reading across devices. Grotesques with ambiguous letterforms (I/l/1) reduce accessibility. Choose designs with distinct character differentiation and open apertures for inclusive typography.

Calama Legibility Characteristics

Calama draws legibility from its no serif extensions on stroke terminals and stroke contrast ranging from monolinear to subtly modulated. These characteristics help readers distinguish similar glyphs such as I, l, and 1 at a range of sizes.

Calama in Context: Readability

Humanist sans-serifs offer the best body-text readability in the category. Geometric and neo-grotesque designs excel in short-form UI text but require careful sizing for sustained reading. Use at 16 px minimum for body text, and maintain 1.5 line-height to support comfortable reading rhythm.

Visual Comfort with Calama

Calama provides a focused weight range that maintains consistent typographic color across paragraphs. Balanced stroke modulation keeps visual noise low during sustained reading sessions.

Calama Accessibility Recommendations

Maintain a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for body text and 3:1 for large text when setting Calama. Use font sizes of at least 16 px for paragraph copy and line spacing of 1.5 or greater. Test Calama at 200% browser zoom to confirm line breaks and layout integrity remain intact.

Best Practices for Using Calama

Pair with Garalde or Transitional serifs for classic contrast. A humanist sans body with a geometric sans display creates intra-category tension without conflict. A focused set of pairings helps designers find compatible companions for Calama. Establish hierarchy through size, spacing, and color rather than multiplying font families. Serve Calama in WOFF2 format with its extended character set to ensure consistent rendering across global audiences.

Get the Font

Download Calama

Available Weights

400

Regular

Local

400

Regular Italic

Local

700

Bold

Local

700

Bold Italic

Local

Weight Reference

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

Internationalization

Calama Multilingual Support

Extended Latin Coverage

Supports 100+ languages with Latin script

Western European

English
French
German
Spanish
Italian
Portuguese
Dutch

Nordic

Swedish
Norwegian
Danish
Finnish
Icelandic

Central European

Polish
Czech
Hungarian
Romanian
Slovak

Baltic

Lithuanian
Latvian
Estonian

This font encodes 475 glyphs covering Latin, Greek and Cyrillic. Latin coverage extends past the basic ASCII set into Latin Extended, so Central and Eastern European languages set correctly. Text outside these ranges falls back to another face in the stack.

Legal

Calama Licensing

SIL Open Font License (OFL) 1.1

Free for personal and commercial use

View License

What you can do

Personal projects
Commercial projects
Web embedding
App embedding
Modification
Redistribution

Restrictions

Selling as standalone

Modified versions must use a different name and be distributed under the same OFL license.

Calama is available under the SIL Open Font License (OFL), Version 1.1. This license is a free, libre, and open source license specifically designed for fonts and related software. The OFL allows the fonts to be used, studied, modified, and redistributed freely as long as they are not sold by themselves. This makes Calama ideal for web projects, applications, documents, and print materials of any kind.

1// tailwind.config.js 2module.exports = { 3 theme: { 4 extend: { 5 fontFamily: { 6 'calama': ['Calama', 'sans-serif'], 7 }, 8 }, 9 }, 10} 11 12// Usage in HTML 13<p class="font-calama">Your text here</p>

Calama

Best Ways to Use Calama

Best Font Pairings for Calama

Test Calama Font Pairings Live

In Context

Calama Typography

Calama

Character Set

Type Scale

Body Text with Calama

Quick Start

HTML Link Tag

CSS @import

CSS @font-face

Implementation

Standard CSS

SCSS Variable

Tailwind CSS

About

Typography Judgment

Classification

Accessibility

Design Heritage

Overview

Categories

Explore More

Inclusive Design

Using Calama Accessibly

Calama Legibility Characteristics

Calama in Context: Readability

Visual Comfort with Calama

Calama Accessibility Recommendations

Best Practices for Using Calama

Get the Font

Available Weights

Weight Reference

Internationalization

Western European

Nordic

Central European

Baltic

Legal

What you can do

Restrictions

Calama

Best Ways to Use Calama

Best Font Pairings for Calama

Test Calama Font Pairings Live

In Context

Calama Typography

Calama

Character Set

Type Scale

Body Text with Calama

Quick Start

HTML Link Tag

CSS @import

CSS @font-face

Implementation

Standard CSS

SCSS Variable

Tailwind CSS

About

Typography Judgment

Classification

Accessibility

Design Heritage

Overview

Categories

Explore More

Inclusive Design

Using Calama Accessibly

Calama Legibility Characteristics

Calama in Context: Readability

Visual Comfort with Calama

Calama Accessibility Recommendations

Best Practices for Using Calama

Get the Font

Available Weights

Weight Reference