Trello uses Charlie Display and Charlie Text for its marketing and brand touchpoints, and Atlassian Sans for its product UI. Charlie is a custom geometric sans-serif font designed exclusively for Atlassian. Atlassian Sans is a modified derivative of Inter Variable, adapted to work inside Atlassian’s product suite, which includes Trello, Jira, and Confluence.
Before this system was in place, Trello relied on Helvetica Neue as its primary typeface.
What Type of Font Is Charlie?
Charlie is a geometric sans-serif typeface. It comes in two optical sizes: Charlie Display, for large headings and marketing use, and Charlie Text, for smaller body-level text.
The family was built with a higher x-height compared to typical display faces, which gives it solid legibility even at smaller sizes. Character spacing is wider than you’d expect from a strict geometric sans, which keeps it readable at the text sizes Trello typically uses across its boards and cards.
In terms of classification, Charlie sits between a pure geometric and a grotesque. It has the clean circular forms of geometric type, but the spacing and texture behave more like a grotesque font, which makes it friendlier for long-read contexts than something like Futura.
Who Designed the Trello Font?
James Edmondson of OH no Type Co. designed Charlie Display and Charlie Text for Atlassian. The project began around 2016, with the completed family announced publicly in September 2017.
Edmondson worked directly with Atlassian’s in-house design team, including designer Angy Che, who handled the product logo system. The brief was clear: create a typeface that communicated bold energy without feeling aggressive, something that would work across Atlassian’s growing list of products without feeling out of place on any of them.
Ben Kiel assisted with mastering the final font files to ensure consistent rendering across operating systems and software environments. The result was a family with 5 upright weights for Display and a separate Text cut with adjusted spacing and x-height proportions.
Is the Trello Font Free to Use?
Charlie Sans is proprietary. It is not available for public licensing. Atlassian restricts downloads to authenticated users within their design system.
The good news is that Atlassian Sans, used inside Trello’s product UI, is based on Inter Variable. Inter is fully open-source, published under the SIL Open Font License (OFL), and available for free on Google Fonts. You can use it in personal and commercial projects without restrictions.
If you want to recreate the look of Trello’s interface typography, downloading Inter from Google Fonts is the closest you’ll get without access to Atlassian’s internal font files.
| Font | Use in Trello | License | Source |
| Charlie Display | Marketing, headings | Proprietary | Atlassian internal only |
| Charlie Text | Brand body copy | Proprietary | Atlassian internal only |
| Atlassian Sans (Inter) | Product UI | OFL (free) | Google Fonts |
| Atlassian Mono (JetBrains Mono) | Code in product | OFL (free) | Google Fonts / JetBrains |
What Font Did Trello Use Before?
Trello’s design team replaced Helvetica Neue during its Nachos design system overhaul, which was publicly documented on the Atlassian blog in late 2017.
Helvetica Neue was the typeface in use before the rebrand. Atlassian’s designers noted that Helvetica’s letterforms are too uniform for information-dense screens, which reduces legibility when text appears at small sizes. This was a real problem for Trello specifically, since the kanban board interface packs a lot of text into tight card layouts.
Before committing to any new typeface, the Trello design team tested candidates using a Chrome extension called Font Swap, swapping in different typefaces directly in live Trello views. This real-world testing approach shaped the final decision toward something with better text rendering at small sizes.
The switch to system fonts (SF Pro on macOS, Segoe UI on Windows) served as an interim stage before Atlassian landed on Atlassian Sans as a unified cross-platform solution.
What Are the Best Free Alternatives to Charlie Sans?
Since Charlie Sans isn’t publicly available, here are 4 solid free alternatives that match its geometric-yet-warm personality.
| Font | Similarity | License | Source |
| Inter | Closest to Atlassian Sans / Trello UI | OFL | Google Fonts |
| DM Sans | Geometric, clean, same weight range | OFL | Google Fonts |
| Nunito | Rounded geometric, warm tone | OFL | Google Fonts |
| Work Sans | Grotesque-adjacent, similar weight feel | OFL | Google Fonts |
Inter is the practical first choice. It’s the actual base of Atlassian Sans, so the resemblance to Trello’s UI is not accidental.
DM Sans is worth looking at if you want something with slightly more personality. Check out DM Sans pairing options if you’re building a UI that needs to feel similar to Trello. Work Sans is another underrated option for productivity tool interfaces.
How to Use Inter (Trello’s UI Font Base) in Your Projects
In CSS / Web Projects
Add Inter via Google Fonts with a single import:
“ @import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Inter:wght@400;500;700&display=swap');
body { font-family: ‘Inter’, sans-serif; } `
This mirrors the font stack Atlassian Sans is built on. For a closer match to Trello’s actual UI, use font-weight: 400 for body text and font-weight: 500 for card titles.
In Figma
Inter is available directly inside Figma’s font menu without any setup. Just type “Inter” in the font selector and pick the weight you need. If you want to learn how to add fonts to Figma from external sources, the process is straightforward.
In Canva
Search “Inter” in Canva’s font library. It’s included by default. You can also upload fonts to Canva if you’re working with custom variants or modified versions.
Why Did Trello Choose These Fonts?
The decision came down to 3 things: readability at small sizes, cross-platform consistency, and brand alignment across Atlassian’s product portfolio.
Trello’s interface is dense. A single board can have dozens of cards, each with titles, labels, due dates, and member avatars all competing for attention. Typography that fails at 13–14px breaks the whole experience. Helvetica Neue was causing exactly that kind of failure at lower screen resolutions.
The switch to system fonts (SF Pro + Segoe UI) addressed rendering consistency, but introduced a different problem: spacing and sizing behaved differently between macOS and Windows. SF Pro sits higher on the baseline than Segoe UI, which broke component alignment across operating systems. Atlassian Sans, based on Inter Variable, solved this by giving every platform the same typeface.
Charlie Display and Charlie Text serve a different purpose. They carry the brand identity layer. Trello’s logo and marketing materials use Charlie to maintain visual consistency with other Atlassian products like Jira and Confluence, even though each has its own distinct product identity. The typographic hierarchy this creates, Charlie for brand expression and Atlassian Sans for UI function, is a deliberate split that keeps the interface clean while marketing stays visually bold.
Atlassian’s design team has also pointed to accessibility as a core driver. Inter’s letter disambiguation features (like the slashed zero option) make a real difference in information-dense screens. For a project management tool used by teams every day, that kind of accessibility-first font thinking matters more than it might in a consumer app.
Curious how other productivity tools handle this? The Notion font and Asana font follow similar patterns, balancing brand expression with clean UI typography.
FAQ on What Font Does Trello Use
What font does Trello use in its interface?
Trello uses Atlassian Sans for its product UI. It’s a custom derivative of Inter Variable, optimized for information-dense screens. For marketing and brand materials, Trello uses Charlie Display and Charlie Text.
Is the Trello font the same as the Atlassian font?
Yes. Trello is owned by Atlassian and follows the Atlassian design system. The UI font is Atlassian Sans, and the brand font is Charlie Sans. Both apply across all Atlassian products, including Jira and Confluence.
What font does Trello use for card titles?
Card titles use Atlassian Sans at medium weight. The same typeface applies to labels, descriptions, and sidebar text. Font weight shifts create the visual hierarchy across board elements, not font switching.
Is the Trello font free to download?
Charlie Sans is proprietary and not publicly available. However, Inter, the open-source base of Atlassian Sans, is free on Google Fonts under the SIL Open Font License. It’s the closest free match to what you see inside Trello.
What font did Trello use before?
Trello previously used Helvetica Neue. The design team replaced it during the Nachos design system overhaul in 2017, citing legibility problems at small sizes on low-resolution screens.
Who designed the Charlie font used in Trello’s branding?
James Edmondson of OH no Type Co. designed it, working directly with Atlassian’s in-house team. The project ran approximately one year, resulting in Charlie Display and Charlie Text, both geometric sans-serif cuts announced in September 2017.
What is the best free alternative to the Trello font?
Inter is the most accurate free alternative since Atlassian Sans is literally built on it. Fonts similar to Inter like DM Sans or Work Sans are also solid choices for UI projects needing that same clean, readable feel.
Does Trello use a serif or sans-serif font?
Trello uses a sans-serif font throughout. Both Atlassian Sans and Charlie are geometric sans-serifs. The Atlassian design system does not use serif typefaces in any standard UI context.
How can I identify the font Trello uses on my own?
Open Chrome DevTools, inspect any text element, and check the font-family value in the computed styles panel. Browser extensions listed on font finders resources can also detect the active typeface directly in the page.
Does Trello use Google Fonts?
Not directly. Trello serves Atlassian Sans as a hosted web font through Atlassian’s own infrastructure. The typeface is based on Inter Variable, which is available on Google Fonts, but Trello does not load fonts from Google’s CDN.
Conclusion
If you’ve been wondering what font does Trello use, the answer splits into two layers: Charlie Display and Charlie Text for brand and marketing, and Atlassian Sans for the product UI.
Atlassian Sans is a refined build on top of Inter Variable, chosen specifically for legibility across Trello’s kanban board interface.
The previous typeface, Helvetica Neue, couldn’t hold up at small sizes on dense screens. The switch to a custom geometric font system was a deliberate call, not a cosmetic one.
For anyone trying to match Trello’s UI look, Inter is your starting point. It’s free, well-supported, and the actual foundation of what Atlassian Sans is built on.
Renowned for his expertise in logo design and visual branding, Bogdan has developed a multitude of logos for various clients.
His skills extend to creating posters, vector illustrations, business cards, and brochures. Additionally, Bogdan's UI kits were featured on marketplaces like Visual Hierarchy and UI8.
He also wrote in the past years on sites like Design Your Way, WebDesignerDepot, WPDean, Designmodo, Speckyboy, Slider Revolution, and more.
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Bogdan Sandu is a seasoned designer who has been designing websites since 2008. Renowned for his expertise in logo design and visual branding, Bogdan has developed a multitude of logos for various clients. His skills extend to creating posters, vector illustrations, business cards, and brochures. Additionally, Bogdan's UI kits were featured on marketplaces like Visual Hierarchy and UI8. He also wrote in the past years on sites like Design Your Way, WebDesignerDepot, WPDean, Designmodo, Speckyboy, Slider Revolution, and more.
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