Utilising the best free handwriting fonts is a great way to give your design projects an authentic, personal feel. A hand-written scrawl may not be the most legible typeface to use for all your projects, but the freedom and rough immediacy of the best handwriting fonts makes them effective for adding character to a design. Whether you use an elegant script to create a sophisticated feel or ragged scrawl that conveys a sense of energy and urgency, be sure that we have plenty of options below.
The best free handwriting fonts comes in many forms, with all kinds of styles to choose from. You can go thick and heavy, neat and tidy or strikingly stylised. There's almost always going to be a good handwriting font out there for what you need, and best of all, many of them are offered free.
We've rounded up our pick of the best free handwriting fonts around, which will hopefully save you some time searching every corner of the web. All of the fonts below are free at least for personal use – many are also free for commercial use but always check the current terms to make sure. For more options, see our pick of the best free script fonts. And for other styles, check out our guides to the best free brush fonts and the best free fonts in general.
The best free handwriting fonts
01. Grape Nuts
Available from Google Fonts, Grape Nuts is a straightforward and charming font inspired by a popular breakfast cereal. It's simple and casual, perfect for striking an informal tone in your designs. The Google Fonts terms allow for both personal and commercial use of the font, but as always, make sure you check the fine print before publishing anything.
02. Gloria Hallelujah
Simple, clear and effective, Gloria Hallelujah is a solid alternative to Grape Nuts, and is also available from Google Fonts. With a playful feel, it's friendly and approachable, as well as being somewhat reminiscent of comic-strip script. It was designed by Kimberly Geswein, and based in part off the handwriting of a Korean schoolchild.
03. Homemade Apple
This clever cursive font flows across the page, its glyphs linking just like real joined-up handwriting. It has an incredibly cutesy, homey feel, and looks like the sort of hand that might jot down a recipe for a homemade apple pie (hey, that's probably where the name comes from).
04. Reenie Beanie Font
Available from a Adobe Fonts, Reenie Beanie is an earthy, fun handwriting fonts for those designs where you don't want to take yourself too seriously. It's based on handwriting done with a ballpoint pen, and according to the creators, it "could be used to represent the scribbling of a mad scientist, or the recipes of a genius chef." We'll let you be the judge of that one, but regardless, this is a versatile and highly readable handwriting font.
05. Dawning of a New Day
An important thing to be aware of is that this font is for personal use only, not for commercial. If you're putting together party invites, birthday greetings or something of that nature, Dawning of a New Day is a simple but realistic choice of handwriting font. It's another one by calligrapher Kimberly Geswein (responsible for Gloria Hallelujah at #2) who says it was inspired by a friend of hers.
06. Vujahday Script
Vujahday Script is an organic cursive font. This font comes with both a plain and a script stylistic set, as well as Latin character sets that support Western, Central, and Vietnamese languages. This font is available to use for personal and commercial use.
07. Beth Ellen
Seriously, how cute is this font? The authentic and earthy feel to this script is perfect for a range of projects. This font was inspired by designer, Rob Jelinski's mother who passed away to cancer. This font is completely free to use for personal and commercial use, but Jelinski has requested that you send a short note to someone you love every time you use the font.
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."
This handwriting font is 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
31. Sketch Block
This hand-sketched headline font was designed by artist Lukas Bischoff. He comments: "Created solely by me sketching by hand and then digitised, Sketch Block makes a perfect font to create the handmade character look, or to supplement illustrations with typography." Free for personal use only, it's one of the nicest free handwriting fonts we've seen in a long time.
32. GoodDog
A contemporary and decorative font, GoodDog was created by Fonthead Design. The curly typeface is a popular choice, having been downloaded over 2.25 million times since its release. This free handwriting font comes complete with a full set of upper and lowercase letters, numbers and characters.
33. J.D Handcrafted
J.D Handcrafted is one of 16 fonts created by Emerald City Fontwerks, the stylish design being one of the studio's most popular. The brush, script-style typeface is free for personal use, with a full set of characters at your disposal.
34. Amatic
A quirky, narrow and condensed design by typographer Vernon Adams, this free handwriting font is perfectly suited to designs on the funny side, such as comedy strips. Amatic only includes uppercase letters but comes in both regular and bold styles.
35. Journal
Created by Hans Gerhard Meier aka Fontourist, this beautiful script-style font's name explains exactly the type of design it's suited to. This font is extremely popular, and with good reason.
36. Daniel
Daniel is one of many fonts created by designer Daniel Midgley. Free for both personal and commercial use, Daniel includes a full set of upper and lowercase characters, numbers and various special characters.
37. Scribulous Scrawlin'
We had to pop a chalk-style free handwriting font in the list and this one which was designed Alphabeta85 is a perfect addition. It comes in both capitalised and lower-case, as well as numbers, punctuation, and symbols. Make sure you only use it for personal work.
38. Linny
This cutesy font was designed by Maya, aka Linny. This handwriting type is actually Maya's handwriting and after being asked to develop the font for personal use, she finally did! It comes in upper and lower case, as well as numbers and punctuation.
39. Fatstack
We love this heavy duty, scribble-friendly font designed by Blambot Fonts. Consisting purely of capital letters, this is a free handwriting font that would be perfect for some seriously bold design work. You can also grab some punctuation and numbers in the free package.
40. Worstveld Sling Extra
One of 82 typefaces developed by Gem Fonts, Worstveld Sling Extra is one of its most popular hand writing designs. Intended for personal use, this free handwriting font family includes a full set of upper and lowercase letters, numbers and various special characters.
41. Housegrind
This cool script font was created by graphic designer Måns Grebäck, who specialises in logotypes and typography. Free for personal use only, a commercial licence for Housegrind can be purchased via Grebäck's website.
42. VersionType
A condensed sans-serif font, VersionType was created by senior designer Victor Coreas. "It is meant to be playful and very loose," he comments. The typeface includes a full set of upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters, and it's free for personal and non-profit use.
43. Billy
Created by Claire Joines, Billy is another font made from the designer's own handwriting. It's free for personal and non-profit use (although attribution or a thank you would be nice); if you want to use it commercially, get in touch with Claire. She'll normally ask for attribution and a small donation.
44. Novito Nova
Novito Nova is a free handwriting font created by Russian designer Nina Pu. "This font was made for making people happy," she comments on Behance. A whimsical design, Novito Nova is great for providing projects with an authentic handmade feel.
45. Mink Type
Mink Type was created by New York-based art director Filiz Sahin. "Mink Type is a cool, hand-painted display typeface that was developed using brush tools in Illustrator," she comments. "Each letter has three variations including upper and lower cases so you can create a custom feel for your designs."
Read more:
- Font vs typeface: the ultimate guide
- Here are the best font pairings
- Typography design: rules and terms every designer must know
