Kermit is a typeface to help kids read

Microsoft’s Kermit is a typeface designed to help children learn to read.

To help young readers of all skill levels, we’re introducing Kermit, a child-friendly typeface created by the type design studio Underware. Kermit is a friendly and approachable font that encourages children of all skill levels to read, even if they are anxious about their abilities. It is a powerful example of just how much design decisions matter: Associating boldness and letter widths with verbal inflections could improve a child’s comprehension, or employing Variable Fonts for animation may help severe dyslexics start their reading journey.

Surely these design desicions make a typeface easier for anyone to read. Kermit isn’t particularly silly. It would be fine for most things. If you got a formal letter in this the alarm might dingle faintly but not like Comic Sans or Papyrus would set it off. Perhaps the thing is that legibility coincides with qualities people find childish, such as rounded serifs and terminators and so on. So optimizing for legibility runs into those implications (while conversely, designing for children allows for legibility optimizations that might be a harder sell in adult-oriented applications)

Here’s a screenshot, taken on Windows 11, rendered by Firefox. Acme might go with it nicely for display/headlines.

Previously:
• Indianapolis launches literacy-promoting ‘Big Free Libraries’
• Data Defenders, a media literacy game about data collection and targeting for kids in grades 4-6
• Copyrightus Infringio! Public library ends Harry Potter-themed child literacy program after legal threat from Warner Brothers