Shantell Sans
Type with Purpose
Good typography guides attention, improves understanding, and makes communication effortless.
The Anatomy of a Typeface
By FontSide · June 2026
Every typeface is a system of decisions — about stroke contrast, x-height, spacing, and rhythm. The best ones feel invisible: you stop seeing the letters and start hearing the voice behind them. That transparency is the hardest thing to design.
A high x-height opens up the counters and makes small text breathe. Tight tracking pulls a headline together; loose tracking gives a caption room to exhale. None of these choices are accidents — they are arguments about how reading should feel.
Uppercase
Lowercase
Numerals
Symbols
Package Manager
The recommended way to use fonts in modern web projects.
1. Install Package
pnpm add @fontsource-variable/shantell-sans2. Import in App
import '@fontsource-variable/shantell-sans/wght.css';3. CSS Usage
body {
font-family: "Shantell Sans Variable", system-ui;
}Google Fonts CDN
Use Google's CDN to embed the fonts directly via HTML.
HTML <head>
<!-- Please select at least one weight and style -->Fontsource CDN
Skip the build step by adding this directly to your global CSS file.
Global CSS
/* shantell-sans-latin-wght-normal */
@font-face {
font-family: "Shantell Sans Variable";
font-style: normal;
font-display: swap;
font-weight: 100 900;
src: url(https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/fontsource/fonts/shantell-sans:vf@latest/latin-wght-normal.woff2)
format("woff2-variations");
}Background & Story
British visual artist and philosopher Shantell Martin is famous for using words in her artwork in the Oculus at the World Trade Center, in New York City, and for her music and art collaboration with Kendrick Lamar at Art Basel in Miami. Her art has taken over the screens of New York’s Times Square and the Lincoln Center stage, home of the New York City Ballet.
Back in school, she was scared of spelling tests. However, outside of school, she felt that words were art and provided emotional relief. A discovery in her early 20s opened her eyes to why reading and writing were so difficult for her, and set in motion her desire to create the To inspire others to have fun with writing and words, she teamed up with Stephen Nixon of Arrow Type to create Shantell Sans.
Shantell Martin, Stephen Nixon, and Anya Danilova share their experiences of the making of Shantell Sans.
To learn more, visit The Story of Shantell Sans .
Tags & Moods
Subsets
Install
pnpm add @fontsource-variable/shantell-sansDesigned by
Shantell Martin, Arrow Type, Anya Danilova
Links
License
OFL-1.1