Unleash your inner child with our roundup of 10 of the best children's fonts.
Creating a design targeted towards children can be hard. If you try too hard to be 'down with the kids' you'll just appear foolish. Perhaps the best way to approach designs for kids is to speak to them on their own terms.
That's the thinking behind these 10 child-friendly fonts, which range from young childlike crayon writing to fun bubble writing to neat cursive handwriting worthy of full marks in any school writing test. Comic Sans, be gone! These kids fonts would look perfect on packaging designs, posters and books.
Getting us started on our list of the best kids fonts is the appropriately named Kids Crayon. Doing just what it says on the tin, this textured font is taken from the crayon handwriting of creator Ian Williams' five-year-old kids. With all the idiosyncrasies that only kids could create, this charming font will only set you back £7.99 (about $10).
This font balances calligraphy with children's writing
Format: OTF, TT
Kids' writing isn't necessarily always clumsy and chalky. Take Kids Script, a font that is based on the calligraphic handwriting models used in Spanish schools in the 1940s. It might sound an esoteric starting point, but the result is a fresh font with a unique edge. Download the three-font family for £49.99 (about $63.50).
This series came about while designing birthday invitations
Format: OTF
PF Kids Pro is another font that uses real life writing as a starting point. In this case, the daughter of Alexandros Papalexis can find her writing immortalised in font form. Created while designing invitations to her birthday party, this rough around the edges font is available in three weights for £140 (about $177.50).
This kooky font has lots of attention-grabbing gimmicks
Format: OTF
Time for something completely different. Speaking to kids in their own handwriting is all well and good (and there's more of that to come) but sometimes a font needs to grab their attention. Enter La Mona Kids, a fun bubble writing font loaded with odd details that are impossible to ignore. What's more, you can grab the eight fonts in the family for just £35.99 (about $45.50).
We're not sure this is the best tag line for a kids' font
Format: OTF
Head over to the Butterfly Kids download page and you'll see the font describe itself as being all about "spreading cheer! Be fun. Be cute. Be happy!" With its curly letter shapes and OpenType ligatures, we'd be hard pressed to disagree. This single font is yours to download for only £13.99 (about $18).
The beauty of blackboard chalk without the horrible noise
Format: TTF
Another font from the school-inspired camp, Cool Crayon is a typeface that emulates the gritty texture of blackboard chalk. (Although we can't help but think, do kids these days even know what blackboards are? Answers on a postcard... or maybe a Tweet.) This font is available free for personal use only, but you can licence it from designer David Kerkhoff's site Hanoded Fonts.
We all sat next to someone in class who dotted their i's with hearts
Format: TTF
Maybe it's just us, but this font is a typographic flashback to sitting next to someone in school who dotted their i's with love hearts and more than likely wrote in neon gel pen. Either way, Cookie Monster is a fun kids' handwriting font that you can download for personal use for free (or negotiate a commercial license with the designer, Des, via the contact details in the font description).
If none of the other pencil fonts on our list are quite what you're looking for, perhaps Crayon En Folie is what you need. This kids' font takes your standard pencil typeface and gives them a splash of colour. Download it for £10.99 (about $14).
A cute font with Sans in the name? Don't worry, JollyGood Sans doesn't have the nauseating edge of Comic Sans. In fact, this typeface is pleasant on the eye and slimmed down so you can fit more letters on the page. And given that it's made for posters and books, it's a practical design choice, too. Download eight fonts for £70.99 (about $90).
When a kids' font is simply named Kids, you know you're on to a winner. Evoking the inky block lettering you'll find in exercise books (again, are they still a thing? Or is it all iPads in classrooms now?), this set comes with uppercase and lowercase letters, plus a whole host of numbers and symbols. Best of all, you can grab it for free.
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Dom Carter is a freelance writer who specialises in art and design. Formerly a staff writer for Creative Bloq, his work has also appeared on Creative Boom and in the pages of ImagineFX, Computer Arts, 3D World, and .net. He has been a D&AD New Blood judge, and has a particular interest in picture books.
