Kidprint®

The European Union (EU) has added numerous members since 2004, increasing significantly the number of languages spoken within its boundaries. To write the thirty or more languages, three alphabets are required: Roman (Latin), Greek, and Cyrillic. The WGL character set supports all EU languages, in addition to Russian, Ukrainian, and Serbian, and Croatian. Current principal languages of the EU include: Basque, Breton, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, Flemish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Scots Gaelic, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Welsh.

After focusing on printing and typography at the Rochester Institute of Technology, designer Steve Matteson began a long career in type production at the Monotype Imaging font foundry. During his tenure there, he developed many popular typefaces, including Andale Mono, Blueprint, Kidprint, and Fineprint, which was based on a friend’s left-handed print. He eventually directed custom type production at Monotype, remaining in the position until the early 2000s.

Kidprint was designed and conceived in 1995 to appeal to the growing market of child-oriented merchandise and as a relatable branding element for children engaging with the products. It was based on the handwriting of a young child and is meant to reflect the as yet unpolished technique of a kid who has learned to write well, but has still not achieved a mature script or steady hand. In 2003, Matteson left Monotype to found his own corporate type consultant firm, Ascender Corporation. Similar typefaces

Similar typefaces include the PF Kids Pro® font family designed by Alexandros Papalexis, the Hallmark Design Collection’s Wallow® font family, the Boopee® font family designed by Ray Larabie in 2005 for Typodermic, and the P22 Toy Box™ font family all of which mimic the naïve and whimsical style of a young child’s handwriting and print techniques.

References:
Identifont: Kidprint
Linotype: Kidprint

Kidprint is widely used in print and design elements for child-oriented merchandising, websites, CDs, etc. It instantly signals “child” to the viewer and is extremely useful as a branding element for 12 and under materials and products.