Handwriting fonts, which look like they’ve been written by hand, come in all kinds of styles — cursive, swirly, rugged, or with long tails and beautiful swashes — that convey different emotions and set the mood for your entire design. That’s why they particularly lend themselves to headers, logos and branding, posters and social media ads. Handwritten fonts have a long tradition in graphic design, most notably in book and magazine publishing, but they can also be used in web design and help draw attention to user interfaces.
If you want your project to stand out from a sea of cookie cutter designs and add some personality to it, you need to pay as much attention to typography as to other design elements. Handwriting fonts can lend a unique feel to design projects, but be sure to choose your font carefully. Use it with consideration to ensure it fits the project and adds a personal touch yet doesn’t become overwhelming. Also keep in mind font size and readability: most handwritten fonts don’t look right when used for body copy. They can, however, give a lot of impact to short standalone amounts of text.
We’ve compiled 35 of the best free, downloadable handwriting fonts for your projects and inspiration — just make sure you check the license before you use any of them.
35 free handwriting fonts
Shears
Kristi
Pecita
Hills of Marbella
Milles
League Script
Hangry Hand
Reey
Pacifico
Bambi
Permanent Marker
Quentin
Rhesmanisa
Bringshoot
Miglia
Barokah Signature
Noble Company
Oh Now!
Piciaw
Marker Mark
America
Alangkah
Dexotick
Arkipelago
Eagle Thunder
Rustico
Sarina
Cervanttis Signature
Sontoloyo
Westfalia
Nickainley
Yeah Papa
Barista
Maler
Variane Script
1. Shears
By Fontysia Studio
The signature style of this modern and elegant handwritten script font features flowy, rounded shapes that give the impression it was created by pen. Designed by Fontysia Studio, it contains a basic set of glyphs.
2. Kristi
By Birgit Pulk
Kristi – a common Estonian girl name – is a calligraphy font inspired by old chancery typefaces, made with a basic felt pen using bold and quick moves while writing. Notable are the tall ascenders and descenders, slim vertical lines and little twists like in the letter "g."
3. Pecita
By Philippe Cochy
A handwriting font with connected glyphs, Pecita’s natural look is created by a lot of contextual alternates and ligatures. It supports many languages (such as Greek, Cyrillic and Katakana) as well as the phonetic alphabet, mathematical operators, symbols and icons.
4. Hills of Marbella
By Mats-Peter Forss
This luxury handwritten font gives off the feeling of a quick, effortless scribble, taking inspiration from the world of fashion. It comes with wide language support and alternates for multiple characters.
5. Milles
By Fortunes Co.
A free modern script font that includes 151 unique ligatures and 45 alternates. The letterforms have loose brushstroke shapes with especially dominant ascenders.
6. League Script
By Haley Fiege
This coquettish monoline script font, with thin strokes, is reminiscent of handwritten letters from the ’20s, while keeping a modern, clean look at the same time. Designed as an open-source font for the League of Moveable Type, it includes ligatures, 187 glyphs and 8 character sets.
7. Hangry Hand
By Thalia Karr
Graphic designer Thalia Karr loves handwriting fonts and always wanted to make one. Named after the designer’s constant state of “hanger”, this font seems doodled by hand using thick strokes.
8. Reey
By Koen van der Bliek
Containing 245 glyphs, Reey is a hand-brushed script created with a brush and ink. It stands out by its unique swash capitals with very long ascenders and descenders, and distressed look.
9. Pacifico
By Vernon Adams
Here’s a neat brush script handwriting font that takes its inspiration from 1950s American surf culture. Originally commissioned by Google Fonts in 2011, it was redrawn by Jacques Le Bailly at Baron von Fonthausen and expanded to Cyrillic by Botjo Nikoltchev and Ani Petrova at Lettersoup, all the while maintaining its fun, sun-loving feeling.
10. Bambi
By 177 Studio
Bambi is a casual handwritten font. Created by type foundry and multidisciplinary graphic designers 177 Studio, it’s bouncy and quirky, yet modern and very stylish.
11. Permanent Marker
By Font Diner
This all-caps handwriting font represents the look and feel of writing with a thick permanent marker. Its rough edges and thick strokes bring the popular writing tool to mind, and the all-caps letters complete the effect.
12. Quentin
By Get Studio
Another stylish, cursive handwritten font. Quentin stands out because of its rough texture achieved by dry strokes, yet it has natural curves.
13. Rhesmanisa
By Jamaludin Ahmad Sahestya Dharma
This handmade brush font by Indonesian graphic designer Jamaludin Ahmad looks elegant, natural and stylish. Its distinctive features are thin monoline strokes and long ascenders.
14. Bringshoot
By Yusril Muhtadi
Bringshoot is an eye-catching handwritten script font with rounded curves and decorative swashes. Containing 102 characters, it was created by Bali-based type enthusiast and lettering artist Yusril Muhtadi.
15. Miglia
By Ketjup Mandja
Another distinctive handwritten all caps font. Created in 2016 by Ketjup Mandja, Miglia sets itself apart by its neat rounded letters that look great in headlines. There’s also a Miglia Fur version with thinner letterforms.
16. Barokah Signature
By Alifinart Studio
Barokah is a calligraphy font with an elegant touch that features a varying baseline and a blend of soft and bold designs — the hallmark of a signature font. Inspired by the use of an ink pen, this handwritten font includes long and ornate lowercase swashes and extended language support.
17. Noble Company
By 1871 Project
This vintage-inspired monoline script font comes in two styles — rough and regular — and is ideal for any designs that want to convey a retro feel.
18. Oh Now!
By Khurasan
This handwritten all-caps brush font from Indonesian designer Syaf Rizal is semi-bold and has an italic slant. It also contains additional language support.
19. Piciaw
By Miftahul Huda
This edgy, fat-finger font features an italic slant and capitals with unusually long stems, creating a hand-doodled appearance.
20. Marker Mark
By Vlad Cristea
A beautiful SVG handwriting brush font that preserves both color and transparency. Marker Mark was made manually by using a marker on paper, then scanned in and cleaned digitally.
21. America
By Alex Joganic
America is a textured script with large dramatic capitals and a natural flowing stroke, resulting in a design that’s highly ornate yet rough at the same time. It was inspired by the Childish Gambino song This is America and also includes alternate characters.
22. Alangkah
By Muhammad Faisal
This calligraphy-inspired handwriting font by Muhammad Faisal, a UK-based developer and designer, has a distinctive signature-style and features a standalone underline that can be added to the end of the word for added flourish.
23. Dexotick
By Dhan Studio
Textured brush font Dexotick comes with unique features. Some of the letters intentionally feel a little disconnected, adding versatility to the design. You can also choose from a range of different underlines to add to the text.
24. Arkipelago
By Nasir Udin
The imperfect design of this wet ink brush script font gives it a quirky vibe. It contains extra alternate letters and several ligatures for a more natural handwritten look.
25. Eagle Thunder
By Semar
A unique textured brush font that features natural hand drawn strokes with irregular baselines. It’s all in caps, with a prominent slant and a distressed look reminiscent of urban street art.
26. Rustico
By Hustle Supply Co.
Rustico is a rough brush handwriting font. This all-caps typeface is bold, has a slight italicized slant, and the brush texture looks grungy and authentic.
27. Sarina
By James Grieshaber
This brush-style font, designed by James Grieshaber, features a wide setting, with very little difference between the cap- and X-height. The medium contrast gives this font a casual feeling.
28. Cervanttis Signature
By Creatype Studio
A handwritten signature script featuring dominant swash capitals. With a natural, distinctive and stylish flow, Cervanttis font seems to be elegantly scribbled.
29. Sontoloyo
By Alphart
This handwriting font with a natural, casual-looking design was created in 2018 by Indonesian typeface designer Agung Rohmat, aka alphArt. With a thick stroke, some of the letterforms (“g”, “j” and “y” in particular) feature very long descenders.
30. Westfalia
By Rambler Creative
This hand-painted brush font, all in caps, conveys an authentic feel thanks to its messy edges and varied stroke thickness.
31. Nickainley
By Seniors Studio
Nickainley is a versatile monoline script handwriting font with a classic and vintage feel. The font features large swash capitals, an especially long ascender in the “f” and unusual, enclosed counters in some of the letters.
32. Yeah Papa
By Rafa Miguel
This is a fun font that looks just like natural handwriting. Created by designer Rafa Miguel from the Dominican Republic in 2015, Yeah Papa sets itself apart by its bold, straight and condensed letterforms, all in caps.
33. Barista
By Hendra Pratama
Barista is a unique monoline script font with connected letterforms that look like they’re made out of rope, alluding to the appearance of custom hand lettering. The font also contains ligatures and alternates. For example, you can add expandable ending swashes by adding an underscore (_) after the final letter.
34. Maler
By Sergey Vasenin
This all-caps display font supports Latin and Cyrillic characters, with a simple design that looks just like it was painted by a thick paint brush. Its intentionally imperfect strokes are designed for a relaxed reading experience.
35. Variane Script
By Boy Moch Tomi
An elegant cursive font featuring long ascenders and descenders and rounded terminals.
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