Mathematical and Puzzle Fonts/Typefaces

All fonts are available to play with as web applications which run entirely in your (modern) browser, including iOS and Android.

For more information, read our paper “Fun with Fonts: Algorithmic Typography”.

Impossible folding font by Erik Demaine, Martin Demaine, Tomoko Taniguchi, and Ryuhei Uehara, 2019.

by Erik Demaine, Martin Demaine, Tomoko Taniguchi, and Ryuhei Uehara, 2019. Each letter is an impossible object called a hypercard: it can be cut and folded from a single square of paper, even though the vertical flap cannot be flattened into the horizontal plane without material overlapping.

Ada font by Ada Bienkowska, Erik Demaine, and Martin Demaine, 2018.

by Ada Bienkowska, Erik Demaine, and Martin Demaine, 2018. Each letter is made up of two simple symbols: a U shape and a line. Both symbols are in every letter, and every U shape has exactly the same proportions; the shapes are just rotated and/or scaled.

Puzzle and animation fonts can be made by rotating the basic symbols.

Checkers font by Jeffrey Bosboom, Spencer Congero, Erik Demaine, and Martin Demaine, and Jayson Lynch, 2018.

by Jeffrey Bosboom, Spencer Congero, Erik Demaine, and Martin Demaine, and Jayson Lynch, 2018. Each letter is an 8 × 8 cooperative always-jumping checkers puzzle. The solution sequence can be animated!

Such puzzles are NP-complete in general, as proved in our paper “Losing at Checkers is Hard.

Spiral Galaxies font by Walker Anderson, Erik Demaine, and Martin Demaine, 2018.

by Walker Anderson, Erik Demaine, and Martin Demaine, 2018. Each letter is a Spiral Galaxies puzzle whose unique solution forms the image of the letter.

You can interactively solve the puzzles.

One-fold silhouette font by Erik Demaine and Martin Demaine, 2018.

by Erik Demaine and Martin Demaine, 2018. Each letter is formed by folding two translucent symbols on top of each other, as in silhouette puzzles.

String art font by Erik Demaine, Martin Demaine, and Petros Vrellis, 2017.

by Erik Demaine, Martin Demaine, and Petros Vrellis, 2017. In one font (shown), each letter is a thread wrapped 1,500 times around 200 pins.

In other fonts, each letter is a thread wrapped around just 22 pins, and involves puzzles related to Euler tours.

Voronoi font by Erik Demaine and Martin Demaine, 2017.

by Erik Demaine and Martin Demaine, 2017. Each letter is the Voronoi diagram of a set of points.

Fold and punch font by Erik Demaine and Martin Demaine, 2017.

by Erik Demaine and Martin Demaine, 2017. Each letter from a square of paper by a sequence of simple folds followed by one circular hole-punch.

From the paper “Folding and Punching Paper”, Journal of Information Processing.

Tangle font by Erik Demaine, Martin Demaine, and Ronald Taylor, 2016.

by Erik Demaine, Martin Demaine, and Ronald Taylor, 2016. Each letter is a flat configuration of a Tangle of identical length, presented graphically or as a NSEW sequence.

Open problem: Can each letter be reconfigured to each other via simple moves?

From the paper “Tangled Tangles”, MOVES 2015: Mathematics of Various Entertaining Subjects.

Card shuffling font by Erik Demaine and Martin Demaine, 2015.

by Erik Demaine and Martin Demaine, 2015. By a sequence of perfect shuffles of 26 cards labeled A through Z, the magician can present the letters of your message in order.

From the paper “Juggling and Card Shuffling Meet Mathematical Fonts”, Connections in Discrete Mathematics: In Honor of Ron Graham's 80th Birthday.

Glass cane font by Erik Demaine and Martin Demaine, 2014.

by Erik Demaine and Martin Demaine, 2014. Each letter is a glass cane, a cylinder of glass made by pulling and twisting an arrangement of straight lines of colored glass embedded within clear glass, as simulated by our Virtual Glass software.

Linkage font by Erik Demaine and Martin Demaine, 2014.

by Erik Demaine and Martin Demaine, 2014. Each letter/number is a fixed-angle linkage (which model protein folding) designed so that random configurations can be uniquely decoded back to text.

From the paper “Linkage Font”, in Exchange Book of the 11th Gathering for Gardner (G4G11), March 2014.

Penland glass squishing font by Erik Demaine and Martin Demaine, 2014.

by Erik Demaine and Martin Demaine, 2014. Hot glass components are arranged (in the puzzle font) so that squishing them horizontally produces a letter (in the clear font)

Video font illustrates physical squishing to form the letters

Origami maze font by Erik Demaine, Martin Demaine, and Jason Ku, 2010

by Erik Demaine, Martin Demaine, and Jason Ku, 2010 The font can be folded as extruded letters from a rectangle of paper, using an algorithm for folding orthogonal graphs by the same authors.

Based on a theorem from the paper “Folding Any Orthogonal Maze“, to be presented at the 5th International Conference on Origami in Science, Mathematics and Education (OSME 2010), July 2010.

If you have any feedback on the web applications, email Erik.

Other Related Fonts

Here are some other fonts in the same genre as the mathematical/puzzle fonts above, but by other people.

Peg solitaire font by Taishi Oikawa, Kazuaki Yamazaki, Tomoko Taniguchi, and Ryuhei Uehara, BRIDGES 2017

by Taishi Oikawa, Kazuaki Yamazaki, Tomoko Taniguchi, and Ryuhei Uehara, BRIDGES 2017 Each letter is a reachable pattern in the game of Peg Solitaire from an initially full 5 × 7 board.

The puzzle is to figure out how to reach each such pattern!

3 × 5 origami font by Yoshihisa Matsukawa and Jun Mitani, 2016

by Yoshihisa Matsukawa and Jun Mitani, 2016 Each letter is the silhouette of a flat origami folded from a 3 × 5 box-pleated grid.

Based on an enumeration of all such silhouettes by Matsukuwa, Yamamoto, and Mitani, which appears at ICGG 2016.

Last updated June 16, 2019 by Erik Demaine.