The open independents.
The faces Google doesn't have — libre type from independent open-source foundries like Velvetyne, Collletttivo and The League of Moveable Type. We host every one ourselves under the Open Font License. Every designer is named, every license links out to its real text.
15 faces added recently — a fresh batch lands monthly.
sans-serif · Velvetyne
Karrik
Jean-Baptiste Morizot and Lucas Le Bihan rooted Karrik in vernacular typography: the weight disadjustments, missing optical corrections and uneven letter widths of early sans-serifs are kept on purpose. The result reads raw and slightly clumsy at display sizes yet stays honest and legible in body copy, which is exactly the trick.
By Jean-Baptiste Morizot & Lucas Le Bihan · Velvetyne · OFL
pairs well with Lora — The people behind the letters. a calm contemporary serif that lets Karrik's naive irregularities do the talking.
sans-serif · Collletttivo
Apfel Grotezk
Luigi Gorlero drew Apfel Grotezk for Collletttivo, the Milanese open-source type collective, as a round and airy sans that borrows from both neo-grotesque and geometric traditions. Its German-named weights — Fett and the ultra-plump Satt — push the roundness from friendly to full.
By Luigi Gorlero · Collletttivo · OFL
pairs well with Source Serif 4 — The people behind the letters. a rational text serif that grounds Apfel's rounded warmth.
sans-serif · Collletttivo
Ronzino
Ronzino is Collletttivo's rework of a former corporate typeface, keeping its plain, information-first utility while cleaning up the original's technical rough edges. Deliberately anonymous in character, it is the collective's dependable workhorse for interfaces, signage and dense text, in three weights with matching obliques.
By Luigi Gorlero & Nunzio Mazzaferro · Collletttivo · OFL
pairs well with Fraunces — The people behind the letters. a warm high-contrast serif that adds personality above Ronzino's neutral text.
sans-serif · Velvetyne
Format 1452
Frank Adebiaye, Velvetyne's founder, built Format 1452 as a DIN-like typeface constructed entirely from modules, with no optical corrections at all. First published in 2010 and later refined with Anton Moglia, its condensed geometric skeleton makes it a quietly industrial workhorse.
By Frank Adebiaye, with Anton Moglia · Velvetyne · OFL
pairs well with Lora — The people behind the letters. a bookish serif that softens Format 1452's modular industrial edge.
monospace · Velvetyne
Sligoil
Ariel Martín Pérez designed Sligoil as the interface monospace for the video game Unknown Number, where 'Sligoil' is the name of an evil fictional oil company. Its letterforms channel the culture of the British Isles — Matthew Carter's work, Irish whiskey distillery signage — plus the keycaps of MIT's vintage Space Cadet keyboards, and a 2025 update added Vietnamese support and two new weights.
By Ariel Martín Pérez · Velvetyne · OFL
pairs well with Work Sans — The people behind the letters. a plainspoken sans that gives Sligoil's eccentric mono room to be the voice.
serif · Collletttivo
Sprat
Ethan Nakache drew Sprat from vintage lettering by Eric Gill, building it on two axes of width and weight with long pointed serifs and high contrast. At its lightest it turns angular and aggressive; at its heaviest it smooths out — a titling serif that still holds up at mid-size text in the middle weights.
By Ethan Nakache · Collletttivo · OFL
pairs well with Inter — The people behind the letters. a neutral grotesque that carries body copy beneath Sprat's expressive titling.
serif · Collletttivo
Mazius Display
Mazius Display is a high-contrast serif with old-style proportions and a strong calligraphic pull, its shapes drawn from chancery hands. It ships two distinct italics with personalities of their own, meant to be mixed for expressive headline setting at sizes where the contrast can breathe.
By Alberto Casagrande, redrawn by Luigi Gorlero & Nunzio Mazzaferro · Collletttivo · OFL
pairs well with Inter — The people behind the letters. a neutral sans that anchors body text under the ornate display serif.
serif · Velvetyne
Compagnon
Five students at EESAB Rennes mined the online archives of the Typewriter Database to build Compagnon, a five-style family in which each cut channels a different era of typewriter lettering. Roman, Italic, Medium, Bold and a looping Script each had their own designer, making it a genuinely collective typewriter revival.
By Juliette Duhé, Léa Pradine, Valentin Papon, Chloé Lozano & Sébastien Riollier · Velvetyne · OFL
pairs well with Work Sans — The people behind the letters. a plain modern sans that lets the typewriter texture read as intentional.
display · Velvetyne
Le Murmure
Jérémy Landes designed Le Murmure as the custom identity face for the French design agency Murmure, then released it libre through Velvetyne in 2018. A highly condensed titling sans with calligraphy-inspired details, it plays on a skillful mismatch between characters that gives headlines an unmistakable rhythm.
By Jérémy Landes (Studio Triple) · Velvetyne · OFL
pairs well with Inter — The people behind the letters. a self-effacing sans that gives the condensed titling face all the air.
display · Velvetyne
Pilowlava
Anton Moglia and Jérémy Landes made Pilowlava as a fast-paced creative feedback loop, each trying to surprise the other, and the result looks like cooled lava flows drawn with a compass. It is named after lava pillows — the glassy cushions formed when molten rock meets water — and balances viscous energy against controlled geometry.
By Anton Moglia & Jérémy Landes · Velvetyne · OFL
pairs well with Space Grotesk — The people behind the letters. a techy sans whose quirks nod to Pilowlava without competing.
display · Velvetyne
Terminal Grotesque
Raphaël Bastide started Terminal Grotesque in 2010 out of a pixel font he was drawing for a game project, and Jérémy Landes later forked it to create the open version. Velvetyne calls it a cousin of the pixel fonts, enhanced just enough to feel organic while staying punk and technical.
By Raphaël Bastide, with Jérémy Landes · Velvetyne · OFL
pairs well with IBM Plex Mono — The people behind the letters. terminal heritage meets terminal aesthetics, one raw and one disciplined.
display · Velvetyne
Basteleur
Keussel designed Basteleur with the Tarot de Marseille in mind — the card of Le Bateleur stands for new beginnings, fun and craft, but also the struggle to finish projects. The result is a funny blend of medieval and Cooper-Black-ish warmth, and a 2022 anniversary update added the lighter, sharper Moonlight cut alongside the original soft bold.
pairs well with Work Sans — The people behind the letters. a plain geometric-humanist sans that lets the tarot warmth glow.
display · Velvetyne
Trickster
Jean-Baptiste Morizot named Trickster after the mythological figure who uses secret knowledge to disobey normal rules — a fitting patron for its unusual shapes, tight spacing and army of alternates. It behaves like a blackletter that wandered into a science-fiction novel and decided to stay.
By Jean-Baptiste Morizot · Velvetyne · OFL
pairs well with Inter — The people behind the letters. total neutrality so Trickster's occult geometry reads clearly.
display · Velvetyne
VG5000
Justin Bihan named VG5000 after the 1984 Philips home computer whose video chip drew every character on an 8×10 dot matrix; his revival redraws that grid four times finer, bending curves where the original only had right angles. The character set also carries experimental glyphs for French inclusive writing, ligating gendered endings into single letterforms.
By Justin Bihan · Velvetyne · OFL
pairs well with Inter — The people behind the letters. a screen-native sans that shares the digital DNA without the nostalgia.
display · The League of Moveable Type
Chunk
Meredith Mandel drew Chunk (ChunkFive) for The League of Moveable Type, America's first open-source type foundry, as an ultra-bold slab serif channeling old American Western woodcuts, broadsides and newspaper headlines. It is a one-weight wonder built purely for display work that needs to shout.
By Meredith Mandel · The League of Moveable Type · OFL
pairs well with Source Serif 4 — The people behind the letters. a level-headed text serif under the woodcut shout.