Google Releases Sans Flex as Open Source, Empowering Designers with Ultra-Flexible & legible Typography
Google has made its next-generation brand typeface, Google Sans Flex, available as open source in 2025, marking a significant shift from the proprietary font's decade-long exclusive use across Google products. The variable font, designed by renowned typographer David Berlow in collaboration with Font Bureau and Pathfinders, is now freely available under the SIL Open Font License through Google Fonts.
Revolutionary Variable Font Technology\
Google Sans Flex represents a major advancement in typography, offering designers granular control over six different design axes: weight, width, optical size, slant, grade, and roundedness. Unlike traditional fonts that require separate files for each style variation, this variable font delivers multiple looks from a single download, replacing dozens of individual font files. The font's "flex" capability allows letterforms to "shape-shift" at different scales, adapting intelligently from smartwatch screens to billboards while maintaining optimal legibility.
The roundedness axis proved particularly exciting for Google's design team, enabling precise adjustments that influence how readers emotionally connect with interfaces. Designers can now make text feel "calm as a whisper" or "loud and rugged" by adjusting weight, or evoke a "personal, playful" tone through fine-tuning roundness. Google's research with over 3,000 readers confirmed that this flexibility matters—readers found the taller, more elegant styles to be more premium and engaging than standard fonts.
A Decade of Evolution
The release of Google Sans Flex caps nearly a decade of typographic evolution that began with the 2015 Google logo redesign. The journey started with Product Sans, created to match geometric forms of the new logo, but that typeface proved inadequate for marketing materials and user interfaces. Google Sans followed in 2018, with Colophon Foundry meticulously optimizing character shapes, terminals, and stroke contrasts for display text. Google Sans Text launched in 2020 to address legibility at smaller sizes, featuring taller, more condensed characters with increased spacing. The typeface was recognized as a Red Dot Winner in 2024.
The font family expanded to support over 20 writing systems including Arabic, Chinese, Thai, and Ge'ez, making it one of the world's largest typeface families. Google Sans Code, specifically designed for programming, was also released as open source in 2025 and is used to display code in the Gemini app.
Bridging the Visual Gap
Google's decision to open-source both Google Sans and Google Sans Flex stems from a desire to create a more unified digital experience across platforms. Previously, users encountered Google Sans in Gmail but switched to Roboto or device-specific fonts in third-party apps, creating subtle friction in the digital journey. The font serves approximately 120 billion font requests monthly, making it one of the most-served fonts on the internet.
Developers and designers can now download Google Sans Flex from the Google Fonts website and use it freely in apps, websites, and commercial projects without attribution requirements. The font has already gained early adoption, with apps like Inware adding support for Google Sans Flex. On Linux systems, users can install the font system-wide, though variable font features may be limited to the regular style in some desktop environments.
Looking Forward
By making Google Sans Flex available to the wider community, Google aims to help developers and designers bridge the visual gap between first-party and third-party applications. The goal is creating clearer, more comfortable interfaces for users wherever they engage with technology, fostering a more consistent and polished digital environment for everyone