Font licensing
A plain-English guide to the licenses used by the fonts in this directory.
The short version
Every typeface in the TypeCraft catalog is distributed under a permissive open-source license. In practice that means three things: you can use these fonts in commercial work, you can embed them in software you sell or distribute, and you can modify the source files to suit your project. There are some lightweight obligations — mostly around attribution and redistribution — that we walk through below. None of them get in the way of normal design work.
SIL Open Font License 1.1 (OFL)
The OFL is the most common license in the catalog. It was written specifically for fonts and is maintained by SIL International, a non-profit research organisation that has been distributing typefaces for the world’s minority languages for decades. The OFL gives you the right to use, study, modify, and redistribute the typeface, including in commercial work and bundled inside software, with two main obligations.
First, you may not sell the font files on their own — they have to be free as part of any distribution. Second, if you create a derivative work (a modified version of the typeface), the derivative cannot be released under the original family name without permission from the original designer. The OFL also requires that you keep the license file with the font when you redistribute it. That is the entire license in working terms — there is no royalty, no per-seat fee, and no usage cap.
Apache License 2.0
Several of the typefaces in the catalog — including some of Google’s own in-house designs — are released under the Apache 2.0 license, a general-purpose open-source license that is widely used in software but works equally well for type. Apache 2.0 grants you a broad, irrevocable right to use, modify, and redistribute the work, including in commercial products. The main obligations are that you preserve copyright and license notices when you redistribute the source files, and that any modifications you publish are clearly marked as modifications.
Ubuntu Font License 1.0 (UFL)
A small number of typefaces — primarily the Ubuntu typeface family — are distributed under the Ubuntu Font License, a font-specific license that is functionally similar to the OFL with some additional clauses around derivative naming and redistribution. The same broad freedoms apply: commercial use, modification, and redistribution are all permitted.
Practical guidance
For almost every working designer, the only thing you actually need to do to comply with these licenses is download the font files from the official source and keep the license file with the fonts wherever you store them. You do not need to credit the designer in your published work, you do not need to display the license in your interface, and you do not owe anyone money. If you embed the fonts in a product (a mobile app, a desktop app, a web font), include the license file in the build artifacts so that the obligation travels with the binary.
If you are doing something more unusual — modifying the typeface and shipping a derivative, building a font-customisation product, or wrapping the fonts in a paid service — read the license that ships with the typeface itself, because the specifics matter. The information on this page is a working summary and is not legal advice.