Unicorns Are Awesome Brings Playful Charm to a Small-Brand Identity
I opened a fresh brand board last week, staring at a blank canvas in my design software. A new client had approached me—a small handmade soap maker who wanted to move from hobby sales at weekend markets to a proper brand with packaging, labels, and a simple website. The brief was clear: make it feel warm, whimsical, and authentically handcrafted. Nothing corporate. Nothing stiff. The kind of brand that makes you smile before you even smell the soap.
I started testing display fonts, scrolling through my library, looking for something with personality. That is when I landed on Unicorns Are Awesome. And honestly, the name alone made me grin. But more importantly, the letterforms had exactly the kind of quirky, handwritten energy I needed for this project.
What Unicorns Are Awesome Looks Like in Practice
Unicorns Are Awesome is a handwritten script amp font that lives somewhere between careful calligraphy and a doodle you might sketch in the margin of a notebook. It has that uneven, human rhythm that makes digital type feel personal. The strokes are bouncy without being chaotic, and the terminal flourishes add just enough decoration to feel playful without overwhelming a layout.
I dropped the font onto a simple logo draft—just the soap brand name in lowercase—and it immediately looked like something handwritten with a fine marker on kraft paper. That is the kind of texture a small business wants. It feels approachable, not produced.
The font works beautifully as a display typeface. I would not recommend it for long paragraphs or dense body text, but for short headlines, product names, taglines, and accent text, it is nearly perfect. The uneven baseline and varied stroke widths give it a handmade quality that is hard to achieve with a more rigid script font.
Testing the Font in a Real Branding System
My first step was putting Unicorns Are Awesome on a packaging mockup. The client wanted small rectangular labels for their soap bars, with the brand name at the top and a scent descriptor below. I set the brand name in the font at around 36 points, then used a clean sans serif for the scent name underneath. The contrast was immediate and effective. The handwritten script drew the eye first, then the sans serif provided a calm anchor for the details.
From there, I tested the font in a few more brand touchpoints:
- Business cards: The brand name on the front, a short tagline on the back. The font held up well at small sizes down to about 14 points, though the flourishes became less distinct below that.
- Social media graphics: A product photo overlaid with a handwritten-style quote looked natural and unpolished in the best way. The font blended with the organic feel of the soap imagery.
- Website hero section: I placed the brand name in Unicorns Are Awesome at a large size on a light background, paired with a simple sans serif for navigation links. The homepage felt warm and inviting immediately.
One thing I noticed early on: the font has a distinct personality that can influence everything around it. If you pair it with a cold, geometric sans serif, the contrast can feel jarring rather than intentional. I found it paired best with a rounded sans serif or a soft serif. Something that echoes the gentleness of the handwriting without competing with it.
Readability and Visual Hierarchy with a Handwritten Font
A common concern with script and handwritten fonts is readability. Some are so ornate that you lose the letter shapes entirely. Unicorns Are Awesome does not have that problem. The letterforms are open, the ascenders and descenders are proportioned well, and there is enough spacing to keep words legible even at moderate sizes.
That said, I would avoid using it for long strings of text. A single line or a short phrase is where this typeface shines. When I needed to include ingredient lists or longer product descriptions on the packaging, I switched to a simple serif font for the body copy and reserved the handwritten style for the brand name and accent phrases. That kept the visual hierarchy clean and the brand identity consistent.
The font also has a natural sense of rhythm that helps with brand recognition. When people saw the soap labels, they immediately associated the imperfect, hand-drawn quality with the handmade nature of the product. That is the kind of perceptual shortcut every small brand wants. The font became part of the brand story without needing to explain it.
Where Unicorns Are Awesome Fits in a Design Workflow
In my experience, a font like this is best treated as a specialty tool. It is not an everyday workhorse typeface. But when the project calls for warmth, whimsy, or a personal touch, it is exactly the kind of creative font that can elevate a design from ordinary to memorable.
I have since used Unicorns Are Awesome in a few other contexts beyond that soap brand:
- Café menu boards: The chalk-style aesthetic of the font fits well with café branding, especially for item headings and daily specials.
- Greeting card mockups: Short messages like thank you or happy birthday look genuinely handwritten.
- Product labels for small-batch goods: Jams, candles, teas, and similar artisanal products benefit from the personal feel.
- Blog headers and quote graphics: For lifestyle or craft blogs, this font adds character without effort.
For each project, I tested the font in context before committing to it. I placed it on mockups, printed test labels, and viewed it at multiple sizes. That step is critical with any premium font, especially a handwritten one. What looks charming on screen can sometimes feel too casual in print, or vice versa. In this case, the font translated well to both digital and physical formats.
Practical Notes on Licensing and File Formats
When I decided to use Unicorns Are Awesome for client work, I checked the commercial font licensing terms. The font is available in standard formats including OTF and TTF, which work across both Mac and Windows systems. It includes basic Latin character support, which covered the English-language branding I needed. If your project requires extended multilingual support, you will want to verify the character set beforehand.
I also noticed that the font includes a set of ligatures and alternate glyphs. These are useful for avoiding repetitive letter shapes in longer words or for adding subtle variation across different brand materials. For instance, when I set the same brand name on a label and a business card, I used slightly different alternate forms to keep each piece feeling unique while still belonging to the same system.
The font is a single-weight display font, which is typical for handwritten styles. You do not get a full family with light, regular, bold, and italic variations. That is fine as long as you plan your typographic hierarchy around it. Use it for emphasis, not for everything.
Why This Typeface Works for Small Brands and Creatives
There is a growing demand among small business owners for brand identities that feel genuine rather than mass-produced. Entrepreneurs, makers, and creatives want their visual identity to reflect the care they put into their products. A handwritten script amp font like Unicorns Are Awesome gives designers a way to deliver that without resorting to generic calligraphy or overly polished script fonts that lack character.
In the project I described, the client was thrilled with the final brand identity. The font helped convey the handmade quality of the soap, and the pairing with a neutral serif kept everything professional. The brand came across as both personal and credible—a balance that is not always easy to strike.
For other designers and freelancers looking to add a playful yet functional typeface to their toolkit, Unicorns Are Awesome is worth testing. Use it for logo drafts, packaging mockups, and social media templates. See how it interacts with other fonts in your system. And above all, let the handwritten quality guide the rest of your design choices.
A font like this is not just a decorative element. It can become the emotional center of a brand. When you find the right project for it, the result feels effortless. And that is exactly what good design should look like.
