About
Playpen Sans is one of the font families produced by TypeTogether during over two years of primary research into handwriting education for Latin-based languages, available at primarium.info.
Playpen Sans is a variable font with a weight range from Thin (100) to ExtraBold (800), and supports over 150 Latin-based languages along with a set of "reward icons" as emoji.
It has seven alternate glyphs for each character that are automatically applied as you type, with a built-in shuffler that both ensures variation and avoids repetitive shapes in close proximity. This adds to the overall organic, spontaneous, and authentic feel of the handwritten style.
To contribute, see github.com/TypeTogether/Playpen-Sans
A new casual handwriting font
Some typefaces do more than one thing well, and others excel at one great thing. The Playpen Sans font family by Veronika Burian, Laura Meseguer, and José Scaglione excels at imitating casual handwriting with a completely natural look — the aesthetic form of something made by hand and the digital function of a professional typeface.
The font world has a general tension between what’s organic and what’s digital. When scribbling a quick note, the letters have slight differences, but all look similar because they come from the same person. Handwritten text is inconsistent, while digital typefaces are intended to be consistent — each character exactly the same every time it’s typed.
The goal of a typeface that is both casual in look and digital in nature is to appear authentically human within the bounds of digital reproduction. So, a typeface with a set of characters that are “the same but different” has the authenticity everyone craves. The main problem with casual fonts is not having enough alternate characters to look real. When a family has more than one alternate, another problem arises in controlling how and when a character gets replaced.
To solve these problems, Playpen Sans was designed with seven versions of each character, plus a built-in shuffler, so no single shape is repeated in close proximity. The result is text with spontaneous inconsistencies that feel fun and organic… all the benefits of a modern, professional typeface that looks natural.
The family was made for non-designers and it shines within short, informal settings: greeting cards and invitations, casual signs and documents, and of course, children’s books and educational materials, comic books, and graphic novels. Its straight and curved endings for ‘i, l, y’, the two-story ‘a’, and optional shapes for ‘f, G, I, M’ are clarifying features. It supports over 150 Latin-based languages, and it also comes in a variable font version for developers and designers who value ultimate control, data savings, and design superiority.
Playpen Sans is the combination of technological and aesthetic potential, showing the best of both worlds with its digital capabilities and casual, handmade look. Is it spontaneous? Is it authentic? Thankfully, yes, and yes.
Emojis
Playpen Sans has emojis for breezy and encouraging uses, that each match the eight named weights of the Latin. Find here the list of all the emojis available. You can copy and paste them into your document editor when using the font. 😉
- 🌠
- 🎂
- 🎯
- 👆
- 👍
- 👎
- 📖
- ✍️
- 🎨
- 🏠
- ✏
- ✅
- ❌
- 🪫
- 🏅
- 📣
- 🦄
- 🦖
- 🧩
- 🪐
- ✈︎
- 🌞
- 😍
- ☠️
- ☹️
- 😉
