Is Special Elite free for commercial use?

Yes. Special Elite is released under the Apache License 2.0, which allows commercial use with no fee and no attribution requirement. You can use it in client work, in products you sell, on the web and in print. The one thing you may not do is sell the font file on its own. The licence is inside the download.

Can I use Special Elite in a logo?

Yes. The licence covers the font software, not the artwork you make with it, so a logo set in Special Elite belongs to you — including if you later register it as a trademark. You do not need permission and you do not owe anything to Astigmatic. What the licence stops you doing is redistributing the font file itself as a product.

How do I install Special Elite?

Download the zip and unzip it. On a Mac, select the 1 font file inside and open them, then press Install Font. On Windows, select them, right-click and choose Install. Restart any application that was already open before it will show up.

Does Special Elite support Turkish?

Yes. Special Elite includes the characters Türkçe needs that plain Latin does not — the dotless ı, the dotted İ, and ğ, ş, ü, ö and ç in both cases. This was checked against the font file itself, not assumed from the fact that it covers Latin.

What languages does Special Elite support?

Special Elite covers Latin, Latin Extended and Turkish, across 370 glyphs. Anything outside those alphabets is not included — the character map further up this page shows exactly what you get.

Where can I download Special Elite as WOFF2?

From the WOFF2 button on this page — the file is special-elite.woff2, and it is about 64 KB. It is the complete font repacked for the web rather than a cut-down copy: the same glyphs, the same spacing and the same hinting as the .ttf in the download, roughly 60% smaller. Every browser still receiving updates reads WOFF2, so it is the only web format most sites need. Google Fonts does not offer this file for download at all — it serves WOFF2 from its own servers and gives you .ttf if you ask for the family.

Special Elite

Astigmatic · Astigmatic · 2010 · Apache-2.0

Special Elite is a typewriter face with the strike left in — ink pooling at the joints, edges eaten away, and no two instances of a letter quite the same weight. Brian Bonislawsky based it on the Smith-Corona Special Elite and a Remington, and the roughness is drawn into the outlines rather than applied as a texture, so it survives being printed. It is not fixed-width, which surprises people who assume every typewriter face is.

See Special Elite in a paragraph Compare with Righteous and Audiowide

Commercial use: Yes · Apache 2.0
On a website: Yes · WOFF2 here
Variable: No · 1 weight
In a logo: Yes
Türkçe (ı İ ğ ş): Yes
Italic: No

Alphabets

Style

Click the text above to set it in your own words.

Size — 64px

Size ladder

Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow

Specification

Designer: Astigmatic
Foundry: Astigmatic
Released: 2010
Category: Display
License: Apache-2.0
Commercial use: Allowed
Good for: Titles, Posters, Certificates, Short body text
Weights: 400
Styles: Normal
Variable: No
Glyphs: 370
Languages: Latin, Latin Extended, Türkçe
Download size: 93 KB
Source: github.com/google/fonts/tree/main/apache/specialelite

Special Elite character map

368 characters in the complete font. Grouped by the alphabets it covers — every cell is a character the file really contains.

Latin110

Uppercase

Lowercase

Numerals

Punctuation & symbols

.
,
:
;
!
?
'
"
‘
’
“
”
(
)
[
]
{
}
/
\
|
-
–
—
_
@
#
$
%
&
*
+
=
<
>
~
^
`
€
£
¥
©
®
°
§
†
•
…

Latin Extended189

Western European

Central and Eastern European

Türkçe14

Use Special Elite on the web

Self-hosted

You serve the file yourself. Nothing depends on this site staying up, and you get the whole character set — all Latin, Latin Extended, Türkçe. The file is special-elite.woff2, the same one the WOFF2 button above gives you.

@font-face {
  font-family: 'Special Elite';
  /* Take the WOFF2 button above, put special-elite.woff2 wherever
     you serve static files from, and point this at it. */
  src: url('/fonts/special-elite.woff2') format('woff2');
  font-weight: 400;
  font-style: normal;
  font-display: swap;
}

body {
  font-family: 'Special Elite', sans-serif;
}

Hosted by us

One line, nothing to upload. Put this in your <head>:

<link rel="preconnect" href="https://thatsmyfont.com">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://thatsmyfont.com/fontfiles/special-elite.css">

Then use it in your CSS:

body {
  font-family: 'Special Elite', sans-serif;
}

One thing to know: the file we host is cut down to Latin characters so pages load quickly. Special Elite also covers Türkçe, and for those you need the download and the self-hosted route.

Questions

Is Special Elite free for commercial use?: Yes. Special Elite is released under the Apache License 2.0, which allows commercial use with no fee and no attribution requirement. You can use it in client work, in products you sell, on the web and in print. The one thing you may not do is sell the font file on its own. The licence is inside the download.
Can I use Special Elite in a logo?: Yes. The licence covers the font software, not the artwork you make with it, so a logo set in Special Elite belongs to you — including if you later register it as a trademark. You do not need permission and you do not owe anything to Astigmatic. What the licence stops you doing is redistributing the font file itself as a product.
How do I install Special Elite?: Download the zip and unzip it. On a Mac, select the 1 font file inside and open them, then press Install Font. On Windows, select them, right-click and choose Install. Restart any application that was already open before it will show up.
Does Special Elite support Turkish?: Yes. Special Elite includes the characters Türkçe needs that plain Latin does not — the dotless ı, the dotted İ, and ğ, ş, ü, ö and ç in both cases. This was checked against the font file itself, not assumed from the fact that it covers Latin.
What languages does Special Elite support?: Special Elite covers Latin, Latin Extended and Turkish, across 370 glyphs. Anything outside those alphabets is not included — the character map further up this page shows exactly what you get.
Where can I download Special Elite as WOFF2?: From the WOFF2 button on this page — the file is special-elite.woff2, and it is about 64 KB. It is the complete font repacked for the web rather than a cut-down copy: the same glyphs, the same spacing and the same hinting as the .ttf in the download, roughly 60% smaller. Every browser still receiving updates reads WOFF2, so it is the only web format most sites need. Google Fonts does not offer this file for download at all — it serves WOFF2 from its own servers and gives you .ttf if you ask for the family.

Special Elite license

Apache-2.0

You may use, modify and redistribute this font, including in commercial work, provided you keep the license and attribution notices with it.

Commercial use allowed

Taken unmodified from google/fonts
The licence file is inside every zip — the site will not publish a download without one
This page’s data last changed on 4 September 2026

Read the full license text · What these licenses mean · How we check

Pairs well with Special Elite

Archivo
A sans to set the paragraphs under Special Elite.
See the two side by side
Catamaran
A sans to set the paragraphs under Special Elite.
See the two side by side
Noto Serif
A serif to set the paragraphs under Special Elite.
See the two side by side

Cite this page

Special Elite font: licence, alphabets and downloads. Thats My Font. https://thatsmyfont.com/fonts/special-elite (updated 2026-09-04)

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Special Elite at a glance