Typography plays a critical role in conveying the UW–Madison brand. Like the rest of our brand, our official typefaces combine purpose with expressiveness — prioritizing readability and accessibility while preserving flexibility and personality.
All of the typefaces are open source (Google Fonts) and available for free download and use by the entire campus community. To see the brand fonts in action, visit our Gallery page.
In January 2023, UW–Madison announced Red Hat Text and Red Hat Display as the new primary brand fonts. Campus users should phase out the previous brand fonts on websites, print materials, and other uses by June 30.
Primary Typefaces
UW–Madison has two primary typefaces: Red Hat Display and Red Hat Text. With their many styles and weights, these Red Hat typefaces work together seamlessly and can handle it all — from large, expressive headlines to small, readable body copy.
Note: Recommended usage of UW brand fonts for websites is integrated into the updated UW WordPress Themes and HTML templates.
Red Hat Display
Red Hat Display is a geometric sans serif typeface with even strokes, tight spacing, and tall letterforms. Compared to Red Hat Text, it carries a bit more brand personality and should be your default selection if you’re ever unsure which typeface to use.
Recommended uses: Large sizes, headings/headlines, subheadings
Installation instructions for Apple Mac and PC Windows
Red Hat Text
Red Hat Text is optimized for legibility at small sizes. Compared to Red Hat Display, it has more spacing between characters, a larger height difference between uppercase and lowercase letters, shorter letterforms, and greater variation in line weight.
Recommended uses: Small sizes, paragraphs (body copy)
Installation instructions for Apple Mac and PC Windows
Supplemental Typefaces
For specific use cases, University Marketing recommends other typefaces to complement the primary brand fonts.
Crimson Pro
Crimson Pro is a serif typeface designed for optimal readability in longer texts. It also pairs well with our primary Red Hat typefaces.
Recommended uses: Long text (body copy), editorial publications, small sizes only. Not for use on websites.
Installation instructions for Apple Mac and PC Windows
Language-Specific Typefaces
University Marketing worked with Cultural Linguistic Services to select free, open-source typefaces that work best with each of the university’s supported non-English languages:
- Chinese: Noto Serif Simplified Chinese
- Nepali: Eczar
- Tibetan: Jomolhari
Note: These typefaces will be made available as a WordPress plugin sometime in the spring of 2023.