Penguin’s Bold New Font Sparks Debate on Accessibility

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Synopsis

Penguin Inclusive Sans launches with accessibility as its core focus, sparking industry buzz about whether inclusive typography can preserve a brand’s legacy.

Key takeaways

• 90 years of Penguin’s type heritage reimagined through inclusive design.
• Playful glyph quirks strike a balance between warmth and legibility across platforms.
• Supports 600+ languages, redefining what a brand font can achieve.
• Raises questions on balancing legacy with modern accessibility needs.

Accessibility-first design

Olivia King didn’t settle for a surface-level redesign. She went deep into Penguin’s Bristol archives, sifting through original covers, advertisements, and handwritten notes spanning 90 years.

By studying the DNA of iconic typefaces like Gill Sans, Avant Garde, and Helvetica, she ensured that Penguin Inclusive Sans feels connected to the brand’s essence while prioritizing modern needs, such as readability and global consistency.

This is a reminder that evolving design doesn’t erase history; it enhances it, respecting where a brand came from while making it fit for where it’s going.

Custom fonts as strategic brand tools

The typeface isn’t just a rehash of past designs; it’s layered with intention. Letters like ‘2’, ‘G’, and even the humble ‘?’ have a soft, rounded flick that feels like a penguin’s wing in motion—adding warmth and subtle personality.

This design decision isn’t about decoration alone; it helps improve legibility in small sizes across print and digital interfaces.

Each playful tweak serves a larger purpose: to connect emotionally with readers while ensuring a precise and comfortable reading experience.

This deliberate personality embedded within functional forms exemplifies how typography can blend brand identity with practical accessibility.

Inclusivity by default, not afterthought

King’s original Inclusive Sans was shaped by research, such as Sophie Bier’s “Reading Letters,” and real-world testing, including a US school nutrition app that reported significant readability improvements.

Penguin’s new commission scales that mission globally by supporting over 600 languages—a rarity in brand typefaces.

King asserts that inclusivity should not be an extra checkbox in the design process but an embedded standard.

For Penguin, this typeface is more than a branding tool; it’s a statement that accessible, reader-first design can and should be integrated into every level of a publishing powerhouse’s identity.

Four-weight family for global consistency

Penguin Inclusive Sans is a comprehensive family: four weights, roman and italic variants, and 530 glyphs that allow consistency across the brand’s covers, digital assets, marketing materials, and social posts.

This means a reader picking up a Penguin book in India, scrolling through a Penguin Instagram post in Brazil, or reading a Penguin newsletter in the UK will experience a consistent yet warm typographic presence.

King describes this as “making inclusivity the default approach,” enabling Penguin to maintain its visual voice while being adaptable and readable for a global target audience.

Penguin’s announcement of the new font on LinkedIn was met with excitement, with many praising the thoughtful blend of brand heritage and accessibility.

However, not everyone is convinced. Some purists argue that the playful flicks risk undermining Penguin’s longstanding typographic gravitas, suggesting that the warmth could slip into whimsy if overused.

This tension reflects a broader industry debate: can accessibility-driven design maintain the gravitas of a heritage brand, or does it inherently shift the brand’s tone to something softer and less authoritative?

Penguin Inclusive Sans is the latest high-profile test case in this evolving discussion.