When Brand Fonts are Open Source

Discover why brands from IBM to Github open up their fonts to everyone, and how you can reap the rewards.

By Sarah Daily

Reddit, IBM, and the Finnish government have probably never been listed in the same sentence before. But they do share something in common: Their custom fonts are all available on fonts.google.com. Today, there are over 17 open-source Google Font families commissioned by large brands, creative agencies, nonprofits, and even government organizations. These professionally developed fonts are available for anyone to use in their own projects, or as inspiration for new designs. Choosing a brand-commissioned font is a smart way to ensure professional-grade typography from the start.

So why are brands and organizations opting to make their custom fonts open source?

They solve design challenges

Custom fonts are often developed to address particular design problems, like optimizing readability at specific sizes or ensuring seamless integration with digital platforms. As technology continues to advance, so must new fonts and font technology.

The brand font for Spline, a collaborative 3D design tool, is one example. The very nature of 3D design is complex, which means that even a pared-down UI environment is still packed with ”a profoundly proliferating series of specific controls for different aspects of things,’’ as the font’s designer Eben Sorkin puts it. Spline Sans was made to work well in that dense environment, where you have to be judicious with pixels.


In the case of the Braille Institute, that challenge was legibility and readability for people with vision impairment. During a brand refresh, Brad Scott and Elliott Scott of Applied Design Works couldn’t find an existing typeface that met their needs for legibility, readability, and branding. So, they worked with the Braille Institute to develop Atkinson Hyperlegible, which is named after the Braille Institute’s founder, J. Robert Atkinson. The font features clear and distinctive letters and numbers that make it easy to read, and has recently been succeeded by Atkinson Hyperlegible Next.


Google’s own font superfamily, Noto, was developed as a set of fonts for all languages—a major feat considering the vast differences in how text appears in different writing systems. It uses compatible heights and stroke thicknesses with the specific goal of eliminating tofu, those annoying little empty rectangles that show up when a glyph is missing from a font. There are 210 individual font families in the Noto superfamily, covering thousands of languages and 162 writing systems. It even includes two sets of emoji—the typical full-color Noto Color Emoji and a specially crafted monochrome set, Noto Emoji.


Most of the fonts on this list were created to address a specific design problem above all, but there are other benefits, too.

Glyphs are demonstrated on the word “Jalapeño” in Noto Sans.

Dangrek lacks some Latin glyphs, as it was created to primarily support Khmer and other Southeast Asian languages. To avoid missing glyphs, consider using Noto Sans, as it supports thousands of languages.

They’re easy to access and share (while reducing costs)

Unlike traditionally licensed fonts, open-source fonts can be freely shared and used without complex legal restrictions or recurring fees. This makes life a lot easier for designers and other people to get the fonts they need wherever they are, whenever they need them—even for outside contractors and partners.

They can boost brand equity and recruitment

Custom fonts are a powerful tool for brands to stand out, express their personalities, and even communicate their values.
In 2017, IBM Plex was rolled out as part of a system to unify branding across the entire company of over 300,000 employees in 170 countries. Mike Abbink—with help from Bold Monday—created Plex to serve as a more distinctive alternative to Helvetica Neue. It brings IBM’s idea of “mankind and machine” to life through a balance of natural and engineered letterforms. Today, IBM Plex Mono is one of the most popular monospace fonts on fonts.google.com.

And when LV= Insurance launched the Livvic font as part of their rebrand, they opted to make it open source as a gesture toward software engineers. The design itself, from Jacques Le Bailly, is open and friendly—even a bit quirky—with inspiration from handwriting.

IBM type superfamily is displayed.

The IBM Plex superfamily encompasses mono, sans serif, serif, and condensed versions, each designed to convey distinct characteristics while maintaining the integrity of the IBM brand identity.

A black ampersand with pink control points on a green background in the Livvic font.

The Livvic font conveys a sense of friendliness through its design. The ampersand stands out in that way.

They help further innovation in type and support independent type designers

In addition to the obvious benefit corporate funding brings to a design project, the process of developing open-source fonts is also collaborative, which means the opportunity for more ideas, faster problem-solving, and continuous improvement—even after a font launches. Plus, it removes the barrier to entry for independent designers and small foundries to be able to work on large projects.

If anyone knows the value of open source, it’s GitHub, so of course their custom fonts Mona Sans and Hubot Sans are on fonts.google.com, too. Designed together with Degarism, both are variable fonts that GitHub describes as having “two files. Thousands of variations. Infinite possibilities.” On the fonts’ microsite, they even encourage readers to fork them and create pull requests.

They have built-in compatibility with major platforms

Fonts hosted on Google Fonts automatically integrate with widely used design and productivity tools like Figma, Canva, Google Workspace, Adobe, and Wix. In fact, Rethink Sans was developed specifically for use in Google Workspace by Hans Thiessen, executive creative director of Rethink, one of the largest global independent creative agencies. Inherently open source, Rethink Sans is a fork of DM Sans by Colophon Foundry, which in turn is a fork of Poppins by Indian Type Foundry. It features weight-specific tracking, two styles of circled numbers (which are just a keystroke away), and tabular lining figures.

The newest font to be added to the list is Google Sans Code, which was designed to make reading code easier. Most importantly, Google Sans Code works well at small sizes with its fixed and fine-tuned optical size design. It also has a variable-weight axis for the things that make source code different, like unusual character combinations, the use of color, and the importance of vertical relationships between operator symbols. The design minimizes clutter, but there’s still a playful, Googley feel across the Code glyphs—particularly in the italics (and check out those brackets!).

Split screen showing Google Sans Code in a code editor on one side and examples of different characters and style treatments on the other.

On the left, Google Sans Code is applied in a code editor, where its distinct letterforms were designed perfectly to be seen at small sizes. Nevertheless, it can also be used to add more expressiveness in other use cases.

They’re 🤌
Open-source fonts built for the professional world are designed by some of the best type designers out there. They have complete and extensive font families for varied applications, extensive glyph sets for multilingual and technical usages, and are maintained to make sure they always work. If you use them, you have the freedom to modify and tailor them to solve your own design and branding challenges. Plus, they have that built-in compatibility mentioned earlier with Google tools, Figma, Adobe, and more.


Check out the whole bunch on fonts.google





This article is dedicated to the memory of Chris Simpkins, who created the concept and led the execution of Google Sans Code from beginning to end. We celebrate and carry on his passion for making great typography available to everyone. ❤️