EN

Lexend

A variable sans made to reduce visual stress in reading, first drawn with dyslexic and struggling readers in mind.

Sans Serif 9 styles · variable by Bonnie Shaver-Troup, Thomas Jockin, Santiago Orozco and others OFL

Download family 170 KB Type your own text

Lexend is a sans serif typeface from the project started by Bonnie Shaver-Troup, meant to lower visual stress for readers and thereby help reading performance. Lexend is a variable font with nine weights from Thin 100 to Black 900, no italic and 845 glyphs. It is released under the SIL Open Font License 1.1 and suits reading text and interfaces.

Lexend font preview card
Preview drawn by trendhub from the font files.
Designers
Bonnie Shaver-Troup, Thomas Jockin, Santiago Orozco, Héctor Gómez, Superunion
Classification
Sans Serif
License
SIL Open Font License 1.1
Styles
9 9 weights
Variable font
Yes Weight 100–900
Glyphs
845
Languages checked
25 see the list
Last updated
version 1.007
Used for
Body textInterfaces

Official source: Google Fonts. Facts on this page were read from the font files and the source’s published data.

Try Lexend

Sample text

Type over the sample to test your own words. The preview loads a Latin subset of Lexend; the download contains the complete files.

Lexend font specimen: alphabet, numerals and weights
Lexend specimen: alphabet, numerals and weights. Image drawn by trendhub from the font files.

Weights and styles

  • Thin 100Lexend Thin
  • ExtraLight 200Lexend ExtraLight
  • Light 300Lexend Light
  • Regular 400Lexend Regular
  • Medium 500Lexend Medium
  • SemiBold 600Lexend SemiBold
  • Bold 700Lexend Bold
  • ExtraBold 800Lexend ExtraBold
  • Black 900Lexend Black

Lexend is a variable font: the download holds the whole weight range in one file, and the named weights above are positions on that range.

About Lexend

Lexend is a sans serif typeface designed to make reading less of a visual strain. Bonnie Shaver-Troup, who created the Lexend project, first had dyslexic and struggling readers in mind and then found the fonts useful for other readers too. Thomas Jockin drew the first set of seven families, Deca, Exa, Giga, Mega, Peta, Tera and Zetta, each wider and more openly spaced than the one before. This family, plain Lexend, is the newer variable version. Since the update of July 2021 its Regular matches that of Lexend Deca, so the two are currently the same design; an additional axis for varying the inner and outer space of the letters is planned but not part of these files. The font has a weight axis from 100 to 900, nine weights from Thin to Black, no italic, and 845 glyphs for Latin, Latin Extended and Vietnamese.

Where Lexend works

Text for struggling readers
The fonts were first designed with dyslexia and reading difficulties in mind, which is why schools and reading tools choose them.
Educational platforms
One variable file gives lesson text in Regular and headings up to Black with the same letter shapes.
Interfaces that must read quickly
Wide, open letters with generous spacing keep short labels and messages clear.
Long documents on screen
Reducing visual stress is the stated aim of the design, so it is a candidate for manuals, help pages and articles.

Glyphs

!"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>?@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz{|}~¡¢

Latin and Latin Extended characters in the preview subset; the complete family has 845 glyphs.

Language support

The family contains the core letters these languages are written with:

  • English
  • French
  • German
  • Spanish
  • Portuguese
  • Italian
  • Dutch
  • Swedish
  • Norwegian
  • Danish
  • Finnish
  • Icelandic
  • Catalan
  • Turkish
  • Polish
  • Czech
  • Slovak
  • Hungarian
  • Romanian
  • Croatian
  • Slovenian
  • Lithuanian
  • Latvian
  • Estonian
  • Vietnamese

Character sets found in the files: latin, latin-ext, vietnamese. The language list is a check of required letters against the font, not a promise of typographic quality in each language.

License

SIL Open Font License 1.1Copyright 2018 The Lexend Project Authors (https://github.com/googlefonts/lexend), with Reserved Font Name “RevReading Lexend”.

What the license allows

  • 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.

This is a short summary, not legal advice. The license text decides: read the full OFL text. A copy is included in the download.

Fonts that pair with Lexend

Cormorant Serif

Lexend is sans serif and Cormorant is serif (5 weights): the difference in structure separates headings from text.

Patua One Slab Serif

Lexend is sans serif and Patua One is slab serif (1 weight): the difference in structure separates headings from text.

JetBrains Mono Monospace

JetBrains Mono is a monospace family (8 weights) for code and figures next to Lexend as the text face.

Suggestions come from simple rules on the records: a contrasting classification and enough weights to carry body text. They are a starting point, not a verdict.

Use Lexend on the web

Download the family and host the files on your own site, then declare them in CSS. Please do not link to the files on trendhub.net: preview files here are subsets and their addresses change.

CSS, self-hosted
@font-face {
  font-family: "Lexend";
  src: url("/assets/fonts/Lexend-VariableFont_wght.ttf") format("truetype");
  font-weight: 100 900;
  font-style: normal;
  font-display: swap;
}

body {
  font-family: "Lexend", sans-serif;
}

Or load it from the official source. Google Fonts serves Lexend with this markup:

HTML, Google Fonts

Things to know

Same as Lexend Deca for now
Since July 2021 the Regular of Lexend has been aligned with Lexend Deca, and the official notes describe the two as the same.
No italic
Lexend has upright styles only.
Weight is the only axis
The planned axis for letter and spacing expansion is not in these files; the font varies in weight from 100 to 900.
The font name is reserved
The license notice reserves the name “RevReading Lexend”.

FAQs

Is Lexend free for commercial use?

Yes. Lexend is published under the SIL Open Font License 1.1, which allows use in personal and commercial work, modification and redistribution. The font cannot be sold on its own, and modified versions stay under the same license. A modified version may not use the Reserved Font Name “RevReading Lexend” without permission.

Who designed Lexend?

Lexend was created by Bonnie Shaver-Troup, and Thomas Jockin drew the first set of fonts. Santiago Orozco, Héctor Gómez and Superunion are also credited.

Is Lexend made for dyslexia?

Lexend was first designed with dyslexic and struggling readers in mind, with the stated aim of reducing visual stress. How much it helps an individual reader is not something this page can promise.

What is the difference between Lexend and Lexend Deca?

Since the update of July 2021, Lexend and Lexend Deca are the same design. Lexend is the newer family, to which a further axis is planned.

How many weights does Lexend have?

Lexend has nine weights, from Thin 100 to Black 900, and no italic. Because Lexend is a variable font, values in between can also be set.

Which languages does Lexend support?

Lexend includes the letters needed for English and other Latin-script languages such as French, German, Polish, Turkish and Vietnamese. Cyrillic and Greek are not included.

Comments

No comments yet. If you have used Lexend, tell other readers how it went.

Leave a comment

Comments are reviewed before they appear. Links are marked as user content.

Collections with Lexend

Similar fonts

Other families in the same classification, ordered by shared use tags. All sans serif fonts