Commercial · Display · Klim Type Foundry
Maelstrom
Maelstrom is a licensed font from Klim Type Foundry: $60 USD, as printed on the foundry or reseller’s page on 2026-09-05. The 3 open-licence families below are suggested in its place, each with the basis for the substitution.
The name above is set in a fallback face. Maelstrom is a licensed font and there is no file here to show it in; the foundry’s page has the real specimen.
- Designer
- Kris Sowersby
- Released
- 2014
- Styles
- 1
- Classification
- Display
- Price
- $60 USD (base price for the first font style; each subsequent style is discounted (from the Klim FAQs page)) — as printed, read 2026-09-05
- Trial
- The foundry offers a trial download.
A reversed-stress slab serif with razor-thin spacing, deliberately perverse in Klim's own words; Maelstrom Sans is its companion. A single style.
Free alternatives to Maelstrom
Suggested, not measured
Typecase measures fonts from their outlines. Maelstrom is not on this machine, so these were chosen by what is known about it — classification, lineage, common use — and each is labelled with that basis. Open one to see its measured character and neighbours.
Quiet luxury, approachable
The Ultra webfont did not load here — this is a fallback face, not Ultra.
same classification
A heavy display slab with extreme weight; Ultra keeps conventional stress where Maelstrom reverses it.
Quiet luxury, approachable
The Alfa Slab One webfont did not load here — this is a fallback face, not Alfa Slab One.
same classification
A heavy single-style display slab serif; conventional stress and looser spacing than Maelstrom.
Quiet luxury, approachable
The Bagel Fat One webfont did not load here — this is a fallback face, not Bagel Fat One.
commonly substituted
A fat display face that can fill a similar heavy headline role; no reversed stress.
Own Maelstrom? Point the app at the file and this list becomes measured: every open family ranked by how close it actually is, with the difference named. The file never leaves your machine.
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