Thai font · OFL

Mali

มะลิ

By Narongsak Chaiwong

Typography & Licensing Specialist, ThaiGraph · June 13, 2026 · Updated August 5, 2026

Information verified as of August 2026

อ่านหน้า ฟอนต์ Mali เป็นภาษาไทย — พร้อมลิงก์ดาวน์โหลดและวิธีติดตั้ง →

<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Mali:wght@400;700&display=swap" rel="stylesheet">

@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Mali:wght@400;700&display=swap');

font-family: 'Mali', cursive;

What Mali is

Mali is a handwritten Thai and Latin family by Sudarat Leotsithong, distributed through Cadson Demak on Google Fonts since 22 August 2018 under the SIL Open Font License — twelve styles, being six weights from 200 to 700, each with a true italic. That is unusual depth for a handwriting font; most ship one style.

The premise is unusually specific. The project README describes the character directly: a “cute and joyful 6th grade student” with “neat handwriting,” named “Little Jasmine” — เด็กหญิงมะลิ — an imaginary friend invented by the designer. The face is her schoolwork hand. Mali (มะลิ) is the Thai word for jasmine.

A handwriting font built on a named character is a different proposition from a generic casual face. The fiction gives the drawing a consistent personality — diligent, cheerful, eleven years old — and the personality survives into print.

Three different fonts are called Mali — which one do you want?

“Mali” points to at least three unrelated Thai fonts with three different licences. Check this table before downloading.

The first two are by the same designer and built on the same character. The National Fonts record states that TH Mali Grade 6 is one of the 13 Thai national fonts released by the Software Industry Promotion Agency (SIPA) in 2010, designed by Sudarat Leotsithong, and describes it as “the handwriting of a grade-6 girl named Little Jasmine or Mali (เด็กหญิงมะลิ), a character created by the designer” — the same character the Cadson Demak README describes. The same record notes the national font set was revised in 2018 by Cadson Demak and Google Fonts, the year Mali landed on Google Fonts.

The third is unrelated. Its f0nt.com release page dates it 3 June 2024, credits the shop fontbysaikhim, and offers it free “for personal use and general work that generates no income” only, with commercial licensing sold separately. If you need a Mali for revenue-generating work, take one of the first two.

Character design and tone

Mali uses the big head loop of Thai grade-school penmanship — the README calls it “a big head loop writing style which is very popular among the young generation grade school” — rendered with “a fine pencil effect by naive handwriting sense.” The heads on ม, ด, and ค are drawn oversized and round, the way schoolteachers in Thailand teach them, and the strokes keep a light, drawn-by-hand thinness even in the Bold cut.

The result is naive but tidy. This is not scrawl; it is the handwriting of a student who takes pride in her notebook — matching the README’s own word for the character, “neat.” The Latin set carries the same pencil quality, so bilingual children’s material does not break tone mid-sentence.

Google Fonts summarises the family’s voice as inspired by a 6th grader’s handwriting with a “carefree and naive appearance.”

All 12 weights and styles

The google/fonts metadata lists Mali in twelve static styles: six weights at 200, 300, 400, 500, 600 and 700, each with a true italic. No variable-font version is listed. The weight range is the practical argument for Mali over single-style casual faces: a children’s book can run headings, body, and captions in one family without faking bold.

ExtraLight and Light hold the pencil delicacy best; Bold trades some of it for legibility on packaging and signage.

How to download Mali

Mali is a free download from Google Fonts — one ZIP with all twelve static TTFs, no registration or payment. Three routes:

1. Google Fonts ZIP — open the Mali specimen, click “Get font”, and download the family ZIP.
2. CSS embed — load https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Mali:ital,wght@0,400;0,700;1,400&display=swap in a <link> tag, then set font-family: 'Mali', cursive;.
3. GitHub source — the cadsondemak/Mali repository hosts the project files for self-hosting.

Installing locally

• Windows — unzip, right-click a .ttf file and choose “Install”
• macOS — double-click the .ttf and click “Install Font” in Font Book
• Microsoft Word — install first, then pick “Mali” from the font menu; restart Word if it does not appear

Compare it against other casual faces in the font tester, or browse handwritten Thai fonts.

Is Mali free for commercial use?

Yes, fully. The google/fonts metadata records the licence as OFL. Under it you can:

• Use it on retail packaging, shop signage, advertising, and print you sell
• Embed it as a webfont, self-hosted or served from Google Fonts
• Embed it in apps, games, video, and PDFs
• Modify and redistribute it, as long as the OFL notice travels with the files

A kindergarten can print every worksheet, banner, and report card in Mali without licensing paperwork. One caution: do not confuse it with the fontbysaikhim font of the same name on f0nt.com, which permits non-revenue use only. See the comparison table above.

Best use cases

Mali is for work aimed at, about, or voiced by children — the README itself recommends it for “kids related subject or primary school casual announcement.” Strong briefs:

• Children’s books and early-reader material in Thai, English, or both
• School communications: classroom posters, notices, activity sheets
• Snack, dessert, and dairy packaging aimed at families
• Café chalkboard menus and handwritten-style price tags

Where it fails: anything that needs authority. Banking, law, news, government — Mali undercuts all of them by design. It is also a poor body face past a paragraph or two; handwriting texture tires the eye at length. Set the body in Sarabun and keep Mali for headings and pull quotes.

Pairings

Mali needs a plain partner; two handwriting voices on one page compete.

• Sarabun — neutral looped body text under Mali headings, also OFL
• Prompt — geometric sans for navigation and UI around Mali display text
• Noto Sans Thai — the most neutral option when material must render across many devices

When a project outgrows the child’s voice — a snack brand moving upmarket, say — a geometric headline face like Kanit is the next step that stays friendly without handwriting.

For adjacent casual voices, compare Itim (rounder, more uniform), Sriracha (looser, more adult) and Charmonman (a connected script hand). The Thai typography guide covers register matching; the fonts directory has the full catalogue.

Licensing

Mali is released under the SIL Open Font License: free for commercial use, modification, embedding, and bundling, provided the OFL notice stays with the files. The google/fonts metadata records the licence as OFL, the category as HANDWRITING, and the date added to the repository as 22 August 2018.

Verify at the Google Fonts specimen or the cadsondemak/Mali repository. If the brief calls for the Thai national-font lineage of the same child’s hand, see TH Mali Grade 6 by the same designer.

Information verified as of August 2026