# Climate Crisis font

> A variable display face whose single Year axis, 1979 to 2050, ties the weight of the letters to Arctic sea ice data.

Climate Crisis is a variable display typeface made for the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat and credited to Daniel Coull and Eino Korkala. Its one axis, Year, runs from 1979 to 2050 and links the weight of the letters to Arctic sea ice levels. Climate Crisis is under the SIL Open Font License 1.1 and is built for headlines and campaign graphics.

## Facts

- Classification: [Display](https://trendhub.net/fonts/category/display)
- Designed by: Daniel Coull, Eino Korkala
- License: SIL Open Font License 1.1 (https://openfontlicense.org/open-font-license-official-text/)
- Styles: 1 (Regular 400)
- Variable font: Yes (YEAR 1979–2050)
- Glyphs: 3499
- Character sets: cyrillic, cyrillic-ext, latin, latin-ext
- Last updated: 2026-03-11
- Official source: https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Climate+Crisis
- Page: https://trendhub.net/fonts/climate-crisis
- Tagged for: Headlines, Posters, Editorial, Social media

## About Climate Crisis

Climate Crisis is a display typeface designed to make climate change visible in type. It was made for Helsingin Sanomat, and its weight follows Arctic sea ice measurements for 1979 to 2019 and a projection for 2050, using figures published by the National Snow and Ice Data Center. In place of a weight axis the font has a custom axis, Year, from 1979 to 2050, with eight named positions along it. At the default, 1979, the specimen shows very heavy, wide letters with small counters and thin slits where strokes meet. There is one Regular style and no italic. The font holds 3,499 glyphs and covers Latin, Latin Extended and Cyrillic character sets. Daniel Coull and Eino Korkala are credited; the name table also lists Joohee Lee and Eunyou Noh. The license is the SIL Open Font License 1.1.

## License

SIL Open Font License 1.1. Copyright 2020 The Climate Crisis Project Authors (https://github.com/dancoull/ClimateCrisis)

Allowed:
- Use the fonts in personal and commercial work, in print, on the web and in apps.
- Modify the fonts and build new versions from them.
- Redistribute the fonts, on their own or bundled with software, as long as the license text and copyright notice go with them.

Conditions:
- The fonts cannot be sold by themselves.
- A modified version must stay under the same license and cannot use a Reserved Font Name without the copyright holder's permission.
- The authors' names cannot be used to promote a modified version without permission.

Summary only, not legal advice. Full text: https://openfontlicense.org/open-font-license-official-text/

## Where it works

- **Headlines on climate reporting**: The font was commissioned by a newspaper for this subject, and the Year axis lets a headline carry a data point in its own shape.
- **Animated data graphics**: Animating the Year value from 1979 to 2050 turns a word into a chart of the ice record it is built on.
- **Campaign posters and placards**: The massive 1979 forms fill a poster with a few words.
- **Teaching and exhibition material**: Setting the same word at several years shows the change side by side without a separate diagram.
- **Cyrillic headlines**: Cyrillic letters are included, so the same treatment works for Russian, Ukrainian or Bulgarian text.

## Things to know

- **The axis is custom**: Year has the tag YEAR and is not a standard weight axis. In CSS it is set with font-variation-settings, for example "YEAR" 2019.
- **One style**: Climate Crisis has a single Regular style. Bold and italic settings have no separate cut.
- **Large file**: The variable TTF in the download is 3.6 MB, far bigger than an ordinary single-style font.

## FAQs

### Is Climate Crisis free for commercial use?

Yes. Climate Crisis is published under the SIL Open Font License 1.1, which allows personal and commercial use, modification and redistribution. The font cannot be sold on its own, and modified versions stay under the same license.

### Who designed Climate Crisis?

Climate Crisis is credited to Daniel Coull and Eino Korkala and was made for Helsingin Sanomat. The font's name table also names Joohee Lee, Eunyou Noh and NohType.

### What does the Year axis in Climate Crisis do?

The Year axis of Climate Crisis runs from 1979 to 2050. Each position changes the weight of the letters in step with Arctic sea ice levels for that year, measured up to 2019 and predicted for 2050.

### Is Climate Crisis a variable font?

Yes. Climate Crisis is a variable font with one custom axis, Year (YEAR), from 1979 to 2050.

### Which languages does Climate Crisis support?

Climate Crisis includes the letters needed for English and other Latin-script languages such as Finnish, Swedish, German, French and Polish, as well as Russian, Ukrainian and Bulgarian.

### Can I use Climate Crisis on a website?

Yes. Download Climate Crisis and host it yourself, or load it from the official source, and set the year with font-variation-settings.

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Source: https://trendhub.net/fonts/climate-crisis (trendhub)
