The HeyMadeFonts Foundry
Every font in our library is an original typeface with its own name, designed in code by us. No outline is traced from, copied from or derived from another font.
How a family is made
Each letter is a small program. It builds the letter from stems, bowls, arches, diagonals and serifs, and every measurement comes from a set of parameters: stem weight, width, x-height, stroke contrast, how round or square the curves are, the shape of the stroke ends and the size of the serifs.
A family is one set of those parameters, so a new family is a new set of choices, not a copy of an existing font. We draw three masters per family, at Thin, Regular and Black. They become one variable font with a weight axis from 100 to 900, so any weight in between is available. Italics share the roman's construction, slanted, with single-storey letters where the style calls for it. Spacing comes from each letter's shape, and kerning is measured from the outlines.
Inspiration, not copies
We take inspiration from genres of type, not from particular fonts: geometric and grotesque sans serifs, humanist sans, slab serifs, bracketed text serifs, high-contrast display serifs and monospaced faces. The names are our own. When you switch a site from another font service, the switch tool suggests the family of ours that is closest in style. It is still a different typeface, so check your pages after the change.
What the fonts cover
- Latin: more than 400 characters, including the letters of the Nordic, Western and Central European languages, the Baltic languages, Romanian, Turkish and Vietnamese.
- Cyrillic for Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Serbian and Macedonian, and monotonic Greek, in every family. The Cyrillic and Greek lowercase is measured against the Latin, so mixed text has an even colour.
- Figures, punctuation, quotation marks and guillemets, currency signs (€ £ $ ¢ ¥) and common symbols.
- Weights from 100 to 900 in one variable font, and an italic for every family.
Checked before release
Every family passes an automatic check before it is published. Counters must stay open at Thin, Regular and Black, dots must stay clear of their stems and outlines must stay within the font's metrics. The merged outline of every letter is also checked for drawing faults: cracks where strokes meet, stray spurs and slivers. Black is also checked at text size, 14 point on a high-resolution screen: when a counter fills in or an opening closes there, the Black master is made a little lighter until it passes.
Hinting
The variable fonts we serve on the web are unhinted and ask for smooth rendering at every size, which is how current browsers and systems draw text best. The download for each family adds static files for every weight, automatically hinted for older Windows rendering. There is no manual, pixel-by-pixel hinting.
Not there yet
- No handwriting or script faces and no Arabic yet. They are in development and will be published once they meet the same standard.
- No polytonic Greek, and no Hebrew, Indic or East Asian scripts.
- Kerning is measured automatically. A few letter pairs, especially at the heaviest weights, still sit a little loose or tight.
We keep refining the letterforms. Released files never change: an update is published as new files with new addresses, so a page that links to a version keeps getting exactly that version.
Licence
Every family is released under the SIL Open Font License 1.1. You can use the fonts for anything, including commercial work, logos, apps and print, and you can modify and redistribute them as long as the licence travels with them.
The catalogue
The library has 2,253 families: 329 display, 122 monospace, 1,068 sans serif, 734 serif. Many belong to a larger family with condensed, narrow, wide or extended members, so you can mix widths that share the same letterforms.
Featured families
-
Fjordline
Sans serif
Geometric sans with circular bowls and a single-storey a. It is available as a variable font covering cyrillic, cyrillic-ext, greek, latin, latin-ext, vietnamese.
-
Klinte
Sans serif
Wide geometric sans for headlines and signage. It is available as a variable font covering cyrillic, cyrillic-ext, greek, latin, latin-ext, vietnamese.
-
Mergel
Sans serif
Geometric sans with a small x-height and long ascenders, for calm editorial text. It is available as a variable font covering cyrillic, cyrillic-ext, greek, latin, latin-ext, vietnamese.
-
Strandvej
Sans serif
Rounded geometric sans: every stroke end is a half circle. It is available as a variable font covering cyrillic, cyrillic-ext, greek, latin, latin-ext, vietnamese.
-
Dyne
Sans serif
Soft, wide rounded sans for friendly display sizes. It is available as a variable font covering cyrillic, cyrillic-ext, greek, latin, latin-ext, vietnamese.
-
Kystgrotesk
Sans serif
Grotesque sans with squarer bowls, horizontal terminals and a two-storey a. It is available as a variable font covering cyrillic, cyrillic-ext, greek, latin, latin-ext, vietnamese.
-
Sandhavn
Sans serif
Grotesque with a tall x-height, built for interfaces and small sizes. It is available as a variable font covering cyrillic, cyrillic-ext, greek, latin, latin-ext, vietnamese.
-
Havbris
Sans serif
Condensed grotesque that fits long words into narrow columns. It is available as a variable font covering cyrillic, cyrillic-ext, greek, latin, latin-ext, vietnamese.
-
Klitbred
Sans serif
Extended grotesque with a broad, steady stance. It is available as a variable font covering cyrillic, cyrillic-ext, greek, latin, latin-ext, vietnamese.
-
Marehalm
Sans serif
Sans with gentle stroke contrast and angled terminals, warm in running text. It is available as a variable font covering cyrillic, cyrillic-ext, greek, latin, latin-ext, vietnamese.
-
Skumring
Sans serif
High-contrast sans: thick verticals, fine horizontals. It is available as a variable font covering cyrillic, cyrillic-ext, greek, latin, latin-ext, vietnamese.
-
Granit
Sans serif
Squared sans with tight corners for technical and sporting use. It is available as a variable font covering cyrillic, cyrillic-ext, greek, latin, latin-ext, vietnamese.
-
Spir
Sans serif
Narrow squared sans for tall, compact headlines. It is available as a variable font covering cyrillic, cyrillic-ext, greek, latin, latin-ext, vietnamese.
-
Bastion Slab
Serif
Geometric slab serif with even, unbracketed serifs. It is available as a variable font covering cyrillic, cyrillic-ext, greek, latin, latin-ext, vietnamese.
-
Kobber Slab
Serif
Grotesque-based slab serif with sturdy, square serifs. It is available as a variable font covering cyrillic, cyrillic-ext, greek, latin, latin-ext, vietnamese.
-
Nordlys
Serif
High-contrast display serif with hairline serifs, for large headlines. It is available as a variable font covering cyrillic, cyrillic-ext, greek, latin, latin-ext, vietnamese.
-
Tidevand
Serif
Text serif with bracketed serifs, ball terminals and an oblique stress, for long reading. It is available as a variable font covering cyrillic, cyrillic-ext, greek, latin, latin-ext, vietnamese.
-
Ebbe
Serif
Elegant text serif with a small x-height, fine hairlines and long ascenders, for books and essays. It is available as a variable font covering cyrillic, cyrillic-ext, greek, latin, latin-ext, vietnamese.
-
Morild Mono
Monospace
Monospaced grotesque for code, with a slashed zero. It is available as a variable font covering cyrillic, cyrillic-ext, greek, latin, latin-ext, vietnamese.
-
Tang Mono
Monospace
Monospaced slab serif with typewriter-like serifs. It is available as a variable font covering cyrillic, cyrillic-ext, greek, latin, latin-ext, vietnamese.