Brush and marker fonts
Dry-brush scripts, paint-streaked capitals and felt-marker lettering with visible texture, for energetic headings and handmade branding.
Fresh paint
Brush lettering shows its tool. A loaded brush leaves a fat, wet stroke that thins as the paint runs out; a dry one drags and splits into streaks; a marker makes a blunt, even line with squared or rounded ends. Fonts in this group keep those traces, and that is their whole point: they look made by hand, quickly and with some force.
The mood they carry is informal and physical. Food trucks, surf and skate brands, protest posters, craft markets, fitness and street culture all use the style. Within it, the main choice is between connected brush scripts, which flow and can look almost elegant, and unconnected capitals, which look louder and more urgent.
Texture needs size. The streaks and rough edges that make these fonts convincing are only visible when the letters are large, so use them for headings and short phrases. Shrunk down, the detail turns to noise. File sizes are also often bigger than a clean font's, because rough outlines need more points. As with any imitation of handwork, repeated letters are the giveaway; a font with alternates or contextual forms hides it better, and the notes mention them where recorded.
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Permanent Marker
Marker-pen capitals with rough stroke edges and a forward lean.
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Rock Salt
Tall, sprawling felt-tip capitals with ragged outlines and strokes that overshoot their joins.
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Kaushan Script
An energetic brush script whose strokes swell and taper, with uneven stem angles and a bouncing baseline.
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Caveat Brush
Thick handwriting strokes with slightly ragged edges, like a dry brush or broad marker, in one heavy style for short notes.
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Seaweed Script
A connected brush script with rough, dry-brush edges.
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Knewave
A heavy, right-leaning brush display face with blob-ended strokes.
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Rancho
Chunky strokes that swell and taper like a loaded sign-painter's brush, with a slight slant and plain capitals.
Samples load a basic Latin subset of each family. Every family here carries an open license; its page states the terms and offers the original files.
Questions about brush and marker fonts
Why do brush fonts look rough only at large sizes?
The texture is drawn into the outline at a fine scale. At small sizes it falls below what a screen or printer can resolve, so the letters just look slightly uneven.
Are brush fonts slow to load on websites?
Textured outlines contain many points, so files can be larger than average. Use them for a heading or two and let the browser load only the styles you need.
Can I use these fonts on merchandise I sell?
Yes. Most are under the SIL Open Font License and a few under the Apache License 2.0. Both permit commercial use on printed goods and apparel.