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Discover beautiful fonts and perfect pairings for your next project. Browse 8,500+ fonts with accessibility ratings.

© 2026 TypeSmith · Robert David Orr

  1. Fonts
  2. /
  3. Serif
  4. /
  5. Charis SIL

Charis SIL

Charis SIL brings classic elegance to your typography with refined serifs that guide the eye through extended reading.

Scroll to explore
Serifby Victor Gaultney95% Accessible
Characters646
Glyphs775
Typography Tools

Best Ways to Use Charis SIL

01

Best Font Pairings for Charis SIL

TypeSmith curates 3 expert font pairings for Charis SIL, including combinations with Alata, Altavoz and Merriweather.

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

Explore 3 Pairings for Charis SIL
02

Test Charis SIL Font Pairings Live

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

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

Test Charis SIL Pairings Live

In Context

Charis SIL Specimen Gallery

EditorialUI ComponentsPosterWordmark

Charis SIL Editorial Specimen

Charis SIL in Editorial Context

Charis SIL is a serif typeface by Victor Gaultney suited for editorial layouts and long-form reading.

Victor Gaultney

Typeface Designer • Serif

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

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

Designed by Victor Gaultney, Charis SIL balances personality with function — providing enough character to establish visual identity without compromising the legibility that editorial contexts demand.

Charis SIL
ProductsSolutionsResourcesPricing

Charis SIL Typography

A serif typeface for UI components.

Active2 weights available
DefaultInfoSuccessWarningError
Charis SIL Specimen

Charis SIL

Charis SIL is a serif typeface by Victor Gaultney built for display contexts.

2 WeightsSerif Typeface
Available on TypeSmith

Wordmark Explorations

Charis SIL
Charis SIL
CHARIS SIL
CHARIS SILTYPE
C

Tagline Pairings

Charis SIL— serif typeface
Charis SILBy Victor Gaultney
Charis SILTYPE

Editorial

Magazine-style headline and body text layout

Character Set

Charis SIL Glyphs & Characters

Size48
Showing 62 of 187 charactersDouble-click to copy • Click for details
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz 0123456789

Type Scale

Charis SIL Used As Heading Examples

Heading Level 1<h1>
64px
Bold
72px
Charis SIL primary headline
Heading Level 2<h2>
48px
SemiBold
56px
Charis SIL section heading
Heading Level 3<h3>
32px
Medium
40px
Charis SIL subsection title
Heading Level 4<h4>
24px
Regular
32px
Charis SIL content heading
Heading Level 5<h5>
18px
Regular
26px
Charis SIL minor heading
Heading Level 6<h6>
14px
Medium
20px
Charis SIL smallest heading
Font SizeWeightLine Height
Body Copy

Charis SIL for Paragraphs

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

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

When setting Charis SIL 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.

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

ElementWeightSizeLine HeightTrackingPreview
Body TextRegular16px24px0.5pxCharis SIL delivers excellent readability for body copy
ItalicizedRegular Italic16px24px0.5pxCharis SIL italic provides elegant emphasis
BoldBold16px24px0.5pxCharis SIL bold creates strong visual hierarchy
Small CapsRegular16px24px0.5pxCharis SIL typography specimen
Secondary TextMedium14px20px0.5pxCharis SIL typography specimen
.your-class { font-family: 'Charis SIL'; }

Quick Start

Charis SIL Implementation Guide

HTML Link Tag

Add to your <head> section

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

CSS @import

Add at top of your stylesheet

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

CSS @font-face

Self-host the font files

@font-face {
  font-family: 'Charis SIL';
  src: url('https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Charis+SIL');
  font-display: swap;
}

Implementation

Code Snippets for Charis SIL

Standard CSS

css

Apply directly to any CSS class or selector.

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

SCSS Variable

scss

Define once, use throughout your stylesheet.

 1$font-primary: 'Charis SIL', 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        'charis-sil': ['Charis SIL', 'sans-serif'],
 7      },
 8    },
 9  },
10}
11
12// Usage in HTML
13<p class="font-charis-sil">Your text here</p>

About

Charis SIL: History & Characteristics

Victor Gaultney
Serif
Open Source

Charis SIL balances Swiss precision and refined neutrality, making it well-suited for formal documents. Its traditional elegance and classical proportions contribute to its versatile character. Particularly effective for print publications and editorial design, Charis SIL adapts confidently across design contexts. Extended language coverage includes Charis SIL is a comprehensive font designed to support a wide range of languages. It includes extens....

Charis SIL comes from the work of Victor Gaultney. Known for serif typeface design, the designer's expertise shapes Charis SIL's glyph proportions, stroke consistency, and typographic color.

As a Serif typeface in the Vox-ATypI Classicals classification, Charis SIL features bracketed or hairline serifs terminating each stroke and modulated stroke contrast from axis of stress. These optical characteristics make it well-suited for long-form editorial and book typography.

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

Charis SIL

Typography Judgment

Expert Analysis of Charis SIL

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

1

Classification

Serif analysis. From a classification standpoint, Charis SIL within the Classicals (Humanist, Garalde, Transitional) and Moderns (Didone) tradition, characterized by Bracketed or hairline serifs terminating each stroke and Modulated stroke contrast from axis of stress. Serif letterforms trace to Roman square capitals carved into stone. Key technical strength: extensive weight and optical-size ranges in superfamilies.

2

Accessibility

Readability assessment (grade: 95). Charis SIL delivers consistent readability in both display and body-text roles. Serifs guide horizontal eye movement along the baseline, making text sizes above 9 pt highly readable in print.

3

Design Heritage

Designed by Victor Gaultney. Known for serif typeface design, the designer's expertise shapes Charis SIL's letterform construction and spacing rhythm across a single focused weight.

Overview

About Charis SIL

Charis SIL represents a Classicals typeface, anchored in the tradition where serif letterforms trace to Roman square capitals carved into stone. Its distinctive bracketed or hairline serifs terminating each stroke and modulated stroke contrast from axis of stress make it well-suited for long-form editorial and book typography. TypeSmith indexes Charis SIL in a single weight variant and 3 curated font pairings.

Font Pairings Available
3 curated pairings for Charis SIL
View Pairings

Categories

Browse by Classification

DisplayHandwritingMonospaceSans SerifSerif

Explore More

Alternatives to Charis SIL

View all fonts

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

Aa
Abhaya Libre
Serif
Aa
Gloock
Serif
Aa
Aleo
Serif
Aa
Faustina
Serif
Aa
Alice
Serif

Inclusive Design

Accessibility & Usability

95
Accessibility Score
Excellent Accessibility

Charis SIL Accessibility Profile

Charis SIL scores in the excellent accessibility tier, making it well-suited for body text, UI labels, and long-form reading across devices. High-contrast Didones can cause halation for readers with astigmatism. Prefer Garalde or Transitional cuts at text sizes for inclusive readability.

Legibility Analysis: Charis SIL

Charis SIL draws legibility from its bracketed or hairline serifs terminating each stroke and modulated stroke contrast from axis of stress. These characteristics help readers distinguish similar glyphs such as I, l, and 1 at a range of sizes.

Readability Profile: Charis SIL

Serifs guide horizontal eye movement along the baseline, making text sizes above 9 pt highly readable in print. On screen, hinting quality determines legibility below 14 px. Set body text at 16 px or larger on screen, with line heights between 1.4 and 1.6 for sustained reading comfort.

Charis SIL: Comfort in Extended Reading

Charis SIL provides a focused weight range that maintains consistent typographic color across paragraphs. High stroke contrast can cause halation for some readers, so pair with ample line spacing on bright backgrounds.

Charis SIL Accessibility Recommendations

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

Working with Charis SIL: Best Practices

Pair with geometric or grotesque sans-serifs for contrast. Avoid pairing two serifs from the same Vox sub-class to prevent visual redundancy. A focused set of pairings helps designers find compatible companions for Charis SIL. Establish hierarchy through size, spacing, and color rather than multiplying font families. Serve Charis SIL in WOFF2 format with its extended character set to ensure consistent rendering across global audiences.

Get the Font

Get Charis SIL

Available on Google Fonts
4 weights available for download
Download

Available Weights

400
Regular
400
Regular Italic
700
Bold
700
Bold Italic

Weight Reference

Aa
100
Aa
200
Aa
300
Aa
400
Aa
500
Aa
600
Aa
700
Aa
800
Aa
900

Internationalization

Charis SIL 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

Charis SIL is a comprehensive font designed to support a wide range of languages. It includes extensive coverage for Latin, Cyrillic, and Greek scripts, making it suitable for numerous languages across Europe, Africa, and the Americas. Additionally, it supports various diacritics and special characters, enabling accurate representation of languages with complex orthographies.

Legal

Usage Rights for Charis SIL

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.

Charis SIL 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 Charis SIL ideal for web projects, applications, documents, and print materials of any kind.