# Life Savers font

> A thin slab-serif display face with ball terminals, modelled on hand-lettered 1950s candy adverts.

Life Savers is a display typeface from Impallari Type, with Pablo Impallari, Rodrigo Fuenzalida and Brenda Gallo named in the font files. Life Savers revives hand lettering from 1950s candy advertisements and comes in three weights: Regular, Bold and ExtraBold. Life Savers is released under the SIL Open Font License 1.1 and suits headings, packaging and nostalgic titles.

## Facts

- Classification: [Display](https://trendhub.net/fonts/category/display)
- Designed by: Impallari Type
- License: SIL Open Font License 1.1 (https://openfontlicense.org/open-font-license-official-text/)
- Styles: 3 (Regular 400, Bold 700, ExtraBold 800)
- Variable font: No
- Glyphs: 470
- Character sets: latin, latin-ext
- Last updated: 2025-09-08
- Official source: https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Life+Savers
- Page: https://trendhub.net/fonts/life-savers
- Tagged for: Headlines, Posters, Packaging, Retro

## About Life Savers

Life Savers is a display typeface with thin slab serifs, round ball terminals and tall, narrow capitals. Its source, according to the official notes, is the hand-drawn lettering of 1950s advertisements for Life Savers candy, a style that mixed typewriter forms with a geometric slab serif; the notes add that the original lettering was probably the work of Frazier Purdy at the Sam Marsh Studio. In the specimen the lowercase is small beside the capitals, the a, c, f and r end in dots, and strokes stay almost uniform in the Regular. The family has three static weights, Regular 400, Bold 700 and ExtraBold 800, without italics, and is not a variable font. Each font holds 470 glyphs for the Latin and Latin Extended character sets. Impallari Type is credited for the design, published under the SIL Open Font License 1.1.

## License

SIL Open Font License 1.1. Copyright 2012 The Life Savers Project Authors (https://github.com/googlefonts/life-savers)

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

- **Confectionery and food packaging**: The lettering descends from candy adverts, and the ball terminals and curled serifs carry that sweet-shop tone onto labels and wrappers.
- **Retro headlines**: Regular gives a fine-line headline; Bold and ExtraBold keep the same skeleton when a title needs more ink.
- **Menus and café boards**: Tall capitals over a small lowercase set dish names and section titles in a mid-century advertising voice.
- **Cards and party invitations**: A short line in the thin Regular reads as careful hand lettering on greeting cards and informal invitations.

## Things to know

- **Weights jump from 400 to 700**: There is no Medium or SemiBold. The styles are Regular 400, Bold 700 and ExtraBold 800.
- **No italics**: Life Savers has upright styles only.
- **The Regular is nearly a hairline**: Strokes in the Regular are very thin in the specimen, so small sizes and low-contrast backgrounds call for Bold or ExtraBold.

## FAQs

### Is Life Savers free for commercial use?

Life Savers can be used in commercial projects under the SIL Open Font License 1.1. The license also permits modifying and redistributing the fonts, but they cannot be sold on their own, and derivatives keep the same license. Check the license text for the exact terms.

### Who designed Life Savers?

Life Savers is credited to Impallari Type. The name table inside the fonts lists Pablo Impallari, Rodrigo Fuenzalida and Brenda Gallo as designers.

### How many weights does Life Savers have?

Life Savers has three weights: Regular 400, Bold 700 and ExtraBold 800. There are no italics.

### What is Life Savers based on?

Life Savers is modelled on hand-lettered advertisements for Life Savers candy from the 1950s, according to its official description. The Bold was drawn in 2012 and the ExtraBold in August 2013.

### Which languages does Life Savers support?

Life Savers includes the letters needed for English and other Latin-script languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, German, Turkish, Hungarian and Romanian. Cyrillic and Greek are not included.

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Source: https://trendhub.net/fonts/life-savers (trendhub)