Valley Sans

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Set in Valley Sans itself, from the preview the app ships.

Valley Sans is a clear, versatile typeface intended to work with editorial content, as well as lending a warm charm to user interfaces.

To contribute, see github.com/HelsinkiTypeStudio/valley-sans.

The Moomins are beloved characters created by Tove Jansson, known for wit, warmth, and charm. Valley Sans translates that spirit into a contemporary type system for brand communication, publishing, and digital interfaces while preserving a distinct connection to the Moomin visual world.

The design of the typeface draws from Tove Jansson’s original lettering, the typographic landscape of her era, and details from life in the Finnish archipelago.

Tove Jansson produced a plethora of lettering in many styles. The sans serif work is sturdy and often includes slightly flared terminals, which gave a very clear direction for Valley Sans. However the sans serif lettering is always uppercase.

To build a complete contemporary family, the lowercase and broader stylistic system were complemented with compatible historical models. The design team focused on late-1800s American modern gothic typefaces, chosen for their suitable warmth, practicality, and expressive charm, and also because of a surprising oblique connection to the Moomins.

In the Finnish archipelago, where Jansson spent most summers, cargo crates and other branded pieces of driftwood have washed ashore over time. This inspired the idea of transatlantic flotsam, where distant typographic influences arrive by sea and settle into local visual culture, becoming part of the conceptual foundation of Valley Sans.

The result is a typeface rooted in heritage and storytelling, designed for clarity, rhythm, and usability across styles.

Valley Sans is delivered as a variable-weight family, covering styles from Thin to Black in both roman and italic. This structure provides a broad expressive range while keeping behaviour consistent across editorial and interface contexts.

The family is currently developed for Latin-script use and is intended to support a wide range of contemporary brand and publishing needs in digital and print environments.

Valley Sans was designed for Moomin Characters by Niklas Ekholm and Lari Mörö at Helsinki Type Studio. Images courtesy of Moomin Characters Ltd.

— Niklas Ekholm and Lari Mörö, on Google Fonts

Coming to the App Store

Typecask has no deep links yet. Open the app and search for “Valley Sans”.

License

This Font Software is licensed under the SIL Open Font License, Version 1.1.
This license is copied below, and is also available with a FAQ at:
https://openfontlicense.org

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SIL OPEN FONT LICENSE Version 1.1 - 26 February 2007
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PREAMBLE
The goals of the Open Font License (OFL) are to stimulate worldwide
development of collaborative font projects, to support the font creation
efforts of academic and linguistic communities, and to provide a free and
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with others.

The OFL allows the licensed fonts to be used, studied, modified and
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fonts, including any derivative works, can be bundled, embedded,
redistributed and/or sold with any software provided that any reserved
names are not used by derivative works. The fonts and derivatives,
however, cannot be released under any other type of license. The
requirement for fonts to remain under this license does not apply
to any document created using the fonts or their derivatives.

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"Font Software" refers to the set of files released by the Copyright
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include source files, build scripts and documentation.

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copyright statement(s).

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distributed by the Copyright Holder(s).

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Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
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Valley Sans

More Sans Serif