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Playpen Sans

Variable handwriting from TypeTogether's research into handwriting education, with shuffled alternates for each character.

Handwriting 8 styles · variable by TypeTogether, Laura Meseguer, Veronika Burian and others OFL

Download family 1.5 MB Type your own text

Playpen Sans is a handwriting typeface from TypeTogether, grown out of research into how handwriting is taught. It is a variable font with eight named weights from Thin 100 to ExtraBold 800 and automatic alternates that vary repeated letters. Playpen Sans has 3,082 glyphs, covers Latin, Cyrillic and Greek, and is released under the SIL Open Font License 1.1.

Playpen Sans font preview card
Preview drawn by trendhub from the font files.
Designers
TypeTogether, Laura Meseguer, Veronika Burian, José Scaglione, Kostas Bartsokas, Vera Evstafieva, Tom Grace, Yorlmar Campos
Classification
Handwriting
License
SIL Open Font License 1.1
Styles
8 8 weights
Variable font
Yes Weight 100–800
Glyphs
3,082
Languages checked
29 see the list
Last updated
version 2.000
Used for
CasualRoundedSocial mediaKids

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

Try Playpen Sans

Sample text

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

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

Weights and styles

  • Thin 100Playpen Sans Thin
  • ExtraLight 200Playpen Sans ExtraLight
  • Light 300Playpen Sans Light
  • Regular 400Playpen Sans Regular
  • Medium 500Playpen Sans Medium
  • SemiBold 600Playpen Sans SemiBold
  • Bold 700Playpen Sans Bold
  • ExtraBold 800Playpen Sans ExtraBold

Playpen Sans 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 Playpen Sans

Playpen Sans is a handwriting typeface with upright, unjoined letters and rounded stroke ends, like careful writing with a marker. It is one of the families TypeTogether made following a research project, lasting over two years, on handwriting education in Latin-script languages. According to the official description, every character has seven alternates that the font swaps in automatically, with a shuffler that keeps identical shapes from landing close together, so repeated letters do not look stamped. Playpen Sans is variable: its weight axis runs from 100 to 800, with eight named weights, Thin to ExtraBold, and no italics. Its 3,082 glyphs cover Latin, Latin Extended, Vietnamese, Cyrillic and Greek, and the official notes also mention a set of reward icons. The license is the SIL Open Font License 1.1.

Where Playpen Sans works

Worksheets and school materials
The design comes from research into handwriting teaching, and its clear, separate letters suit exercises and classroom handouts.
Reward charts and feedback notes
The reward icons mentioned in the official notes sit next to comments set in the same hand.
Comics and picture books
Shuffled alternates stop doubled letters from repeating exactly, which keeps dialogue looking written.
Friendly product copy
Eight weights allow a headline, a paragraph and a caption in handwriting with a clear hierarchy.
Handwritten text in Cyrillic and Greek
The same informal style is drawn for the Cyrillic and Greek character sets.

Glyphs

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

Latin and Latin Extended characters in the preview subset; the complete family has 3,082 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
  • Russian
  • Ukrainian
  • Bulgarian
  • Greek

Writing systems with glyphs in the family besides Latin: Cyrillic, Greek. These are listed as scripts, not as a promise for every language written in them.

Character sets found in the files: cyrillic, cyrillic-ext, emoji, greek, 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 2023 The Playpen Sans Project Authors (https://github.com/TypeTogether/Playpen-Sans)

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 Playpen Sans

Prompt Sans Serif

Playpen Sans is a handwriting face for headings; Prompt is a sans serif family with 9 weights that can set the body text beside it.

Averia Serif Libre Serif

Playpen Sans is a handwriting face for headings; Averia Serif Libre is a serif family with 3 weights that can set the body text beside it.

Advent Pro Sans Serif

Playpen Sans is a handwriting face for headings; Advent Pro is a sans serif family with 9 weights that can set the body text beside it.

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 Playpen Sans 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: "Playpen Sans";
  src: url("/assets/fonts/PlaypenSans-VariableFont_wght.ttf") format("truetype");
  font-weight: 100 800;
  font-style: normal;
  font-display: swap;
}

body {
  font-family: "Playpen Sans", cursive;
}

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

HTML, Google Fonts

Things to know

Variation depends on OpenType
The changing letter shapes come from the font's automatic alternates; software that ignores such substitutions shows only the default forms.
Variable file in the package
The download holds the variable font. Static files for the individual weights are available from the official source.
No italics
Playpen Sans is upright only, and its heaviest weight is ExtraBold 800.

FAQs

Is Playpen Sans free for commercial use?

Yes. Playpen Sans is licensed under the SIL Open Font License 1.1. Personal and commercial use, modification and redistribution are permitted; the font cannot be sold on its own, and derivatives remain under the same license.

Who designed Playpen Sans?

Playpen Sans comes from the foundry TypeTogether. The designer credits name Veronika Burian, José Scaglione, Laura Meseguer, Kostas Bartsokas, Tom Grace, Vera Evstafieva and Yorlmar Campos.

How many weights does Playpen Sans have?

Playpen Sans has eight named weights, from Thin 100 to ExtraBold 800, and any value in between can be set on the variable axis.

Is Playpen Sans a variable font?

Yes. Playpen Sans is a variable font; its weight axis runs from 100 to 800.

Why do repeated letters look different in Playpen Sans?

Playpen Sans carries seven alternates per character and a built-in shuffler that rotates them, so the same letter is drawn slightly differently each time it appears nearby.

Which languages does Playpen Sans support?

Playpen Sans includes the letters needed for English and other Latin-script languages such as Spanish, German, Turkish, Polish and Vietnamese, as well as Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian and Greek.

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Collections with Playpen Sans

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