35 Free Handwriting Fonts to Use in Your Designs

Handwriting fonts, which look like they’ve been written by hand, come in all kinds of styles — cursive, swirly, rugged, or with long tails and beautiful swashes — that convey different emotions and set the mood for your entire design. That’s why they particularly lend themselves to headers, logos and branding, posters and social media ads. Handwritten fonts have a long tradition in graphic design, most notably in book and magazine publishing, but they can also be used in web design and help draw attention to user interfaces.

If you want your project to stand out from a sea of cookie cutter designs and add some personality to it, you need to pay as much attention to typography as to other design elements. Handwriting fonts can lend a unique feel to design projects, but be sure to choose your font carefully. Use it with consideration to ensure it fits the project and adds a personal touch yet doesn’t become overwhelming. Also keep in mind readability: most handwritten fonts don’t look right when used for body copy. They can, however, give a lot of impact to short standalone amounts of text.

We’ve compiled 35 of the best free, downloadable handwriting fonts for your projects and inspiration — just make sure you check the license before you use any of them.

35 free handwriting fonts

Shears
Kristi
Pecita
Hills of Marbella
Milles
League Script
Hangry Hand
Reey
Pacifico
Bambi
Permanent Marker
Quentin
Rhesmanisa
Bringshoot
Miglia
Barokah Signature
Noble Company
Oh Now!
Piciaw
Marker Mark
America
Alangkah
Dexotick
Arkipelago
Eagle Thunder
Rustico
Sarina
Cervanttis Signature
Sontoloyo
Westfalia
Nickainley
Yeah Papa
Barista
Maler
Variane Script

1. Shears

By Fontysia Studio

The signature style of this modern and elegant handwritten script font features flowy, rounded shapes that give the impression it was created by pen. Designed by Fontysia Studio, it contains a basic set of glyphs.

2. Kristi

By Birgit Pulk

Kristi – a common Estonian girl name – is a calligraphy font inspired by old chancery typefaces, made with a basic felt pen using bold and quick moves while writing. Notable are the tall ascenders and descenders, slim vertical lines and little twists like in the letter "g."

3. Pecita

By Philippe Cochy

A handwriting font with connected glyphs, Pecita’s natural look is created by a lot of contextual alternates and ligatures. It supports many languages (such as Greek, Cyrillic and Katakana) as well as the phonetic alphabet, mathematical operators, symbols and icons.

4. Hills of Marbella

By Mats-Peter Forss

Hills of Marbella, a free handwriting font

This luxury handwritten font gives off the feeling of a quick, effortless scribble, taking inspiration from the world of fashion. It comes with wide language support and alternates for multiple characters.

5. Milles

By Fortunes Co.

A free modern script font that includes 151 unique ligatures and 45 alternates. The letterforms have loose brushstroke shapes with especially dominant ascenders.

6. League Script

By Haley Fiege

This coquettish monoline script font, with thin strokes, is reminiscent of handwritten letters from the ’20s, while keeping a modern, clean look at the same time. Designed as an open-source font for the League of Moveable Type, it includes ligatures, 187 glyphs and 8 character sets.

7. Hangry Hand

By Thalia Karr

Graphic designer Thalia Karr loves handwriting fonts and always wanted to make one. Named after the designer’s constant state of “hanger”, this font seems doodled by hand using thick strokes.

35 free handwriting fonts to use in your designs