Justseeds Open Type Project
The Justseeds Open Type Project creates open-access fonts for activists, organizers, and movement designers. Most of the fonts are designed by members of the Justseeds Artists Cooperative, though some have been repurposed and expanded from historical posters and artifacts.
Type choices can drastically change how a political design project is read and understood. What makes a font right for a particular project? Legibility and display are important factors in design, but fonts also carry cultural and political signifiers. The left has a rich history of hand drawn, decorative, and display fonts, a legacy that is tied into the history of sign, picket, and banner making as well as the history of accessible and low-cost printing technologies. The Justseeds Open Type Project hopes to draw upon and expand this design history by creating a library and archive of open access fonts for use.
If you’ve used these fonts please send us pictures, we love to see how this work gets out into the world!
- Libertario–adapted from a 1932 Italian pamphlet of writings by Élisée Reclus
- Busted Knuckles–a marker script drawn by Chris Stain (3 versions: left, center, and right leaning)
- Persons Unknown–a modular font by Alec Dunn
- Left Dings–a dingbat font of symbols of the left compiled by Josh MacPhee and Alec Dunn
- Fly Legs–a hand drawn typeface by Meredith Stern inspired by the legs of the common house fly
- The Anarchist Encyclopedia–a font designed by Josh MacPhee for a book of the same name, written by Sébastien Faure in 1934 (and re-published with Josh’s font by AK Press in 2019). (2 versions: color and black and white)
- Manifesto–a sans-serif font derived from the masthead of the 1980s edition of El Machete
- Medicine–an expressive decorative font from Kill Joy
- Rise Up–a hand drawn font by Josh MacPhee that was originally made for the book Why Don’t the Poor Rise Up? Organizing the Twenty-First Century Resistance
- Interkosmos–a science fictional font by Alec Dunn that was derived by the ’70s-era decorative work of Brutalist architect Klaus Franz
- Committee–a typeface by Alec Dunn based on relief cut letterforms (3 versions: bold, light, and rough)
- Upright Citizen–a hand drawn typeface by Chris Stain
- Respect by Kill Joy (3 versions: regular, condensed, outlined)
- Exuberance by Mary Tremonte
Justseeds Font Pack 6: Antifascistas
- Valencia AMA (4 versions: irregulars, slab, sans, sans upright)
- Bilbao AMA
Three fonts by Alec Dunn
- Rent Strike
- Otto
- Squat! (2 versions)
Justseeds Font Pack 8: Antifascistas 2
The second round of fonts from the revolutionary era in Spain. Two fonts from the anarcho feminist publication Mujeres Libres, and one from the feminist communist Mujeres.
- Mujeres Libres
- Madrid AMA
- Madrid ML
Justseeds Font Pack 9: Antifascistas 3
The third round of fonts from the revolutionary era in Spain: two fonts from the anarcho feminist publication Mujeres Libres.
- Maternidad ML
- Paralelismo ML
Two fonts: a modular font from the Argentinian publication Hombre de America and bold sans serif from La Dialectique Peut-Elle Casser Des Briques?.
- Acción Modular
- Brix
Two fonts by Josh MacPhee
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- Slogan Sharp
- Melodie Jazz
Justseeds fonts are available for anyone to use in a non-commercial venture. All available fonts are licensed as Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0). This Creative Commons license means that they can be used, shared, and adapted non-commercially. Attribute them when appropriate and any adaptations must fall under the same license. Most designers do not want their work used for purely commercial purposes without express written consent. If you have questions about using a font please contact us at graphics@justseeds.org. Feel free to contact us or the artist directly if you want to use a graphic in any other way, or are unsure about appropriate use.
