A Custom Font for Early Readers

Designed to Be Read

The Opportunity

LAZ Sans began not as a roadmap initiative but as a passion project, driven by a team of content designers I managed who had been working around a gap no off-the-shelf font could close. Partnering with our instructional designers to ensure every decision was grounded in pedagogy, we identified shortcomings in our legacy typeface that made the case for building our own. From there, we partnered with international typography experts to build a custom typeface from the ground up, purpose-built for K-1 literacy instruction.

LAZ Sans was designed around a clear set of instructional and legibility requirements. Early readers are still building the neural pathways that connect letter shapes to sounds, which means a typeface has real cognitive stakes at this stage. The team addressed the most common failure points:

  • Mirrored letterforms: Letters like b, d, p, and q were designed to be obviously distinct, eliminating a very common source of confusion for young readers.
  • Open counters and apertures: Circle-based letters like a, c, e, and o are clearly differentiated from one another, reducing misidentification.
  • Instructional letterforms: Single-story "a" and "g" mirror what students are taught to write, reinforcing the connection between reading and handwriting.
  • Ascenders and word shape: Ascenders raised above capital height create more varied word shapes, supporting faster recognition.
  • Accessibility: Stroke thickness, x-height, and letter spacing were calibrated to support readers with vision differences and learning disabilities like dyslexia.
The result is a typeface built around our own convictions about how early readers should be taught.

The Outcome

Learning A-Z fully owns LAZ Sans, with no licensing fees and the freedom to modify it as the product line evolves. The financial case was straightforward: the project eliminated significant upfront licensing costs and ongoing annual fees. But the more lasting value is the asset itself, a typeface built specifically for the diverse students Learning A-Z serves, informed by research, designed by experts, and refined through rounds of rigorous review.