The best free handwriting fonts can add an authentic, personal touch to your design projects. Similar to cursive fonts but with fewer constraints, handwriting fonts offer a huge variety of different styles and executions to choose from, ranging from delicate and swirly to blocky and bold, clean and simple, and everything in-between.
Browsing to try to find the best options can take a lot of time, so to make things easier, we've rounded up a wide selection of the best free handwriting fonts around. You'll find our picks for the best free handwriting fonts below with direct links to download each. They're all free to download, but do make sure you check the terms carefully before using them since some may be personal use only or require you to request permission or make a donation for commercial use.
Looking for something else? We also have selections of the best free script fonts, as well as free brush fonts. If you're looking for something really distinct, take a gander at our roundups of the best fun fonts, the best Old English fonts, or if you're open to anything, get stuck into our full rundown of best free fonts in all styles. Once you're sorted with all the fonts you need, see our guide to how to add fonts in Photoshop if you're not sure of the next step.
The best free handwriting fonts
01. Hurricane
We'll kick off our guide to the best free handwriting fonts with this veritable storm of cursive script. Describing the script on Google Fonts, designer Robert Leuschke says: "A storm has been brewing. It’s Hurricane. Flair and excitement abounds with this fast-moving spirited brush script." And that sums it up very nicely. It's an energetic handwriting font that makes us think of old thrillers.
The Regular 400 set is available from Google Fonts with an Open Fonts Licence. Leuschke also has a Pro set with three regular styles plus graphics and Latin Character sets including Western, Central, and Vietnamese language support. The Script stylistic set swaps the caps for a more flourished uppercase. Leuschke has several free handwriting fonts on Google Fonts, and it's worth checking out the others too.
02. Art Typo
We'll move on next to a natural-looking, meandering script that can add a lot of character to your designs. Like authentic handwriting, it's uneven and slightly jagged – and that's exactly why we find it charming. It's free for commercial and personal use.
03. Autography
This is a super-smooth font, in an upright signature style, with an ink effect straight out of an expensive fountain pen. It's free for personal use, but make sure you contact the creator for commercial projects.
04. Dancing Script
This is a super-lively yet beautiful font that is completely free to use commercially or personally. With letters that change size slightly, and caps that go below the baseline, this font is informal and friendly.
05. Wild Youth
Created by veteran font-maker Jeremy Vassey, Wild Youth is both beautiful and adventurous, with a rugged quality sitting alongside its elegant curls. It's a hand drawn brush font that we think is a perfect choice for quotes. It's free for personal and commercial use.
06. Brown Bag Lunch
Brown Bag Lunch is inspired by author Kevin Richey's mum. She used to write his name on his lunch bag everyday, and the font he has created has the feel of a hastily written note. The texture is like a marker pen and the slanted quality feels like a personal touch. It's free for personal and commercial use.
07. Shopping Script
If you're after a flowing handwritten font with its own signature style (no pun intended), Shopping Script is a very nice choice. Created by Hungarian designer Roland Hüse, this handwritten font set covers your basic characters and numbers (A-Z, 0-9, both upper and lower case). Download the free demo version now for personal use. The full version is available on Hüse's online store.
08. Hiatus Handwritten Font
For a very different but also very casual feel, the modern brushed handwritten font Hiatus offers a nice look for posters, t-shirts, branding and headlines in the right context. The free version is available for both personal and commercial use and contains uppercase, lowercase, number, Punctuation and symbols.
09. Timothy
Handwriting fonts aren't all swirly and delicate. Timothy uses block capitals and a chunky marker thickness to add a hand-written touch. Made by Ksenya Zoltsman, this quirky handwritten font was inspired by designer Timothy Goodman. It's free for personal and commercial use and could make a nice, fun choice for use in invitations.
10. Something Wild
Add an authentic feel to your designs with this gorgeous handwritten type design Something Wild. Available over on Pixelbuddha, Something Wild is free for personal or commercial use and will add a touch of personality to your designs, making it perfect for poster and flyer designs.
11. Stay Classy
This well-named free handwriting font is one of the classiest out there. Delicate and interesting without being fussy, make your designs ooze chic by using this for headers and short pieces of text paired with simple, tasteful backgrounds. It's free for personal or commercial use.
12. No Time
Graphic designer Paula Painceiras Martínez is the master behind this quirky, tongue-in-cheek handwriting font, No Time. On her Behance page she states: "Expressive, aggressive and different. This font was created by the handwriting of a stressed designer." It's a totally free license, with a request from the creator to accredit her name or link her profile. (Painceiras says she loves to see projects using this font.)
13. Ambarella
Ambarella is a beautiful free typeface from Polem Studio. Free for both personal and commercial use, the design includes various swashes, alternates and Western European characters.
14. Kristi
Designed by Birgit Pulk, Kristi is an elegant and quirky free handwriting font with flowing ligatures that remind us of fountain pen writing. The capital letter glyphs would work particularly well in headers.
15. Marrisa
Imperfections are beautiful, aren't they? Marrisa reminds us of enthusiastic hand-written notes we've received from relatives; all swooping ascenders and unpredictably sized ligatures. It's full of heart, and embraces its relaxed vibe and carefully curated 'flaws'. It's free for personal use only, but commercial licenses are available.
16. Over the Rainbow
"This font always makes me smile," says the designer of this sweetly named font, Kimberly Geswein. "Something about the style of the handwriting just makes me feel happy. It is slightly connected but not a true script by any means and will lend an upbeat feel to any project you use it on."
17. Stay Writer
Charming handwriting font Stay Writer is free for commercial and personal use. "A hand-drawn display font, every single letter has been carefully crafted to make your text look beautiful," the makers comment on Behance.
18. Fair Prosper
Another free handwriting font packed with personality, Fair Prosper is a marker pen font designed by Khurasan. Available free for personal and commercial use, this font set includes upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols. It would look awesome on branding and designs that rock (and roll).
19. Claire Hand
The team at Australian-based design agency Team Scope are behind handwriting font Claire Hand. Available over on Behance, the team describe the design as: "fun, bold and friendly, and its handwritten style represents our commitment to creative spontaneity (you know how the best ideas get scribbled down on a napkin?). Because we're serious design tragics, we even created each letter in two different weights so it's even more individual."
It's free for personal use, and there's a small fee if you want to use it commercially.
20. Mightype
Free for both personal and commercial use, Mightype was created by designers Mats-Peter Forss and Adam Fathony. A hand-lettered script font, Mightype is great for packaging designs, branding and much more.
21. Reis
This handwritten design Reis was created by art director Marcelo Reis Melo. Great for posters, logos and much more, Reis is available free for personal and commercial use, with donations to the creator (as always) appreciated.
22. Bellaboo
In need of an authentic handwritten font for your latest project? Bellaboo, another design by art director Marcelo Reis Melo, may be just what you're looking for. A bold design, this free handwriting font is great for creating eye-catching headlines, posters and more. It even supports Spanish, German and Swedish characters.
23. Ludicrous
A free handwriting font from Missy Meyer, Ludicrous is great for giving your projects an authentic handmade feel. "With every font, I learn something new," she comments on Behance. "This time around, I did my first ligatures, and included the 15 lowercase letter pairs I thought were most common." It's free for personal use and includes one-user desktop commercial license.
24. Tragic Marker
As we've seen, Missy Meyer is a runaway talent when it comes to creating free handwriting fonts. With Tragic Marker she has created a satisfyingly chunky font that looks like it's been scribbled with a Sharpie. And most impressively of all, it was created in just one day while she learned more aspects of type creation.
25. Skinny
An oldie but a goodie, this handwriting font is, by far, the most popular of the type designs offered online by the artist known as notfon1234. The last update to the design saw a clean up to the spacing and characters, and the font is now completely free for commercial use.
26. Gunny Rewritten
Based on his older font Gunny Handwriting, type designer Vit Condak released this new free handwriting font Gunny Rewritten. Wanting a tidier version of his original (based on his natural handwriting style), Condak completely remade the design and now offers it as a free download for all to enjoy.
27. Halo Handletter
This elegant handwriting font was developed by graphic designer Mario Arturo. One of over 20 fonts created by Arturo, who specialises in fancy and script designs, Halo Handletter is perfect example of the latter. It's free for non-commercial use only; you'll have to pay to use it commercially.
28. Whatever It Takes
The Whatever It Takes free handwriting font harks back to our school exercise books. It's free for personal and non-profit use. However, its creator, designer Brittney Murphy does ask for a $8 donation for commercial use, which we think is still a bargain. There's a bold version, too.
29. L'Engineer
One of our favourite free handwriting fonts, this design by Ferdie Balderas comes in regular and italic as well as capital and lower-case letters. He's even made it supportive of a number of different languages including French, Spanish and Polish.
30. Calligraffiti
Spanning both the genres of handwriting fonts and calligraphy fonts, Calligraffiti is an elegant and simple free single-weight font with 228 glyphs, designed by Open Window.
Next page: more of the best free handwriting fonts
