The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
Free font
Quicksand
A free alternative to Brandon Grotesque.
About Quicksand
Quicksand is a rounded geometric sans drawn by Andrew Paglinawan in 2008 and distributed through Google Fonts. Circular shapes and soft round terminals give it a friendly, faintly toy-like geometry, and it runs lighter and airier than most faces in the category — an airiness that reads as refinement at display sizes and as fragility in long text.
The soft-terminal language is Brandon Grotesque's, and Quicksand is strongest in the all-caps display settings where Brandon's rounded touch is most visible. Underneath sits a skeleton close to Kabel's, with the angled cuts of the 1927 Klingspor original swapped for round ends, which pushes the whole thing toward contemporary-startup rather than Weimar geometry. Against Speedee it offers a lighter, more refined route to the same circular mood. Set it large and in caps, and the rounded geometry does most of the work.
- Designer
- Andrew Paglinawan
- Released
- 2008
- Available at
- Google Fonts →
Quicksand is also a free alternative to…
- Brandon Grotesque → Quicksand uses the same soft-terminal language as Brandon, with rounded geometric forms. Strongest in all-caps display where Brandon's rounded touch is most obvious.
- Kabel → A rounded geometric that trades Kabel's angled cuts for soft round terminals, keeping the friendly, slightly toy-like geometry. It reads more contemporary-startup than 1927 Klingspor, but the underlying skeleton is close.
- Speedee → A geometric rounded sans that is lighter and airier than Speedee, but shares its circular shapes and soft terminals — best for a more refined take on the same mood.
- Quenda → A rounded sans whose light, monoline weights match the airy end of Quenda's range, the Thin and Light styles. It is more strictly geometric and built on circles, so it reads cooler and more constructed than Quenda's warmer, slightly handwritten forms.
Display + body that work together
The shape of a working week
A pairing is a relationship: one voice speaks first, the other answers, and the contrast between them sets the tone for the whole page.
Headlines that read at a glance
The display sets the register; the body follows through. When both halves of a pair pull in the same direction, the design disappears and the words come forward.
Editorial · Modern Playfair Display + Quicksand