Public Sans

Try Public Sans

Weights and styles

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

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

About Public Sans

Public Sans is a sans serif typeface from the United States Web Design System, known as USWDS. It is derived from Libre Franklin, a family by Pablo Impallari with Rodrigo Fuenzalida, and keeps that design's plain grotesque structure: a double-storey a and g, a straight-legged R and even proportions. The stated aim is a strong, neutral face for interfaces, text and headings. The family became a variable font in May 2022 and has one axis, weight, from 100 to 900, with nine named weights from Thin to Black and an italic for each. The fonts hold 645 glyphs in the latin, latin-ext and vietnamese subsets. Dan Williams is listed among the designers together with the authors of the source design. Public Sans is licensed under the SIL Open Font License 1.1.

Where Public Sans works

Government and institutional websites

The typeface comes from a government web design system and is neutral in tone.

Web application interfaces

Nine weights from Thin to Black give labels, buttons, tables and headings distinct levels.

Forms and long instructions

Plain, evenly proportioned letters keep step-by-step text easy to scan.

Design systems needing an open license

One variable file per style group covers every weight between 100 and 900.

Reports and documentation

Regular and SemiBold with italics handle body copy, emphasis and subheads.

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

Fonts that pair with Public Sans

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 Public 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.

@font-face {
  font-family: "Public Sans";
  src: url("/assets/fonts/PublicSans-Italic-VariableFont_wght.ttf") format("truetype");
  font-weight: 100 900;
  font-style: italic;
  font-display: swap;
}
@font-face {
  font-family: "Public Sans";
  src: url("/assets/fonts/PublicSans-VariableFont_wght.ttf") format("truetype");
  font-weight: 100 900;
  font-style: normal;
  font-display: swap;
}

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

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

<link rel="preconnect" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com">
<link rel="preconnect" href="https://fonts.gstatic.com" crossorigin>
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Public+Sans:ital,wght@0,100..900;1,100..900&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">

Things to know

Based on Libre Franklin

Public Sans is a derivative of Libre Franklin, and the font file credits that family's designers.

Variable since May 2022

The official notes record the upgrade to a variable font. The download holds one upright and one italic variable file.

Default weight is 100

The variable files open at Thin 100, which is why the specimen headline is so light; set font-weight explicitly.

Latin scripts only

There is no Cyrillic or Greek. Vietnamese is included.

FAQs

Collections with Public Sans

• Clean sans-serif fonts for app interfaces

  Open-license sans-serif families that stay clear in buttons, menus, tables and settings screens, with the weights an interface needs.

Similar fonts

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