Fraunces + Work Sans

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Grumpy wizards make toxic brew

The five boxing wizards jump quickly over the lazy dog, mixing jugs of quiet vodka while the jury watches. Click anywhere in this preview and type your own text to try the pairing.

Fraunces 600 / Work Sans 400 — click the text to edit

Why it works

Fraunces revives the soft, slightly wonky 'Old Style' display serifs of the early 1900s — gooey terminals, generous bowls — and at semibold it gives headlines a warm, vintage editorial voice that never feels stiff. Work Sans is the quiet modern counterpart: a plainspoken grotesque tuned for on-screen text whose neutrality lets Fraunces's eccentricities register as intentional. Serif character above, sans clarity below is the standard editorial split; this version just runs warmer than the usual Playfair take.

More about each face: Fraunces · Work Sans

Use this pairing

HTML — Google Fonts embed
<link rel="preconnect" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com">
<link rel="preconnect" href="https://fonts.gstatic.com" crossorigin>
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Fraunces:wght@600&family=Work+Sans:wght@400;600&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">
CSS
h1, h2, h3 {
  font-family: 'Fraunces', Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;
  font-weight: 600;
}

body {
  font-family: 'Work Sans', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
  font-weight: 400;
}
Next.js — next/font
import { Fraunces, Work_Sans } from "next/font/google";

const heading = Fraunces({
  subsets: ["latin"],
  weight: "600",
  variable: "--font-heading",
});

const body = Work_Sans({
  subsets: ["latin"],
  weight: "400",
  variable: "--font-body",
});
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