10 Best Places to Find Free Fonts
Typography plays a big role in all types of designs, from product packaging to mobile apps and more. Today we’re taking a look at the best places to find free fonts, and take your design work to a new level.
But why is typography so important? Remember what happened at the Oscars 2017, when they gave the Best Picture award to the wrong film? Typography is to blame for that huge mess. As the creative strategist Benjamin Bannister points out, a simple change in the font and the design could have helped avoid such an embarrassing incident.
This is why it’s important to have more options when designing a new project. Don’t settle for those overused default fonts. Be brave enough to try something new.
There are many places you can download a great looking font free of charge. We narrowed down the list to the top 10 websites for finding free fonts. Have a look.
1. Google Fonts
Google Fonts is one of the first sites that come up on top when searching for free fonts. This massive library features over 800 font families of various types, from sans serif to handwriting fonts, monospaced fonts, and more.
Google Fonts is widely used by web designers for faster and reliable font hosting. However, what most designers don’t know is that the fonts in Google Fonts are downloadable.
And the best part is all the fonts on Google Fonts are open-source. You can use them however you like.
2. Font Squirrel
Font Squirrel is another reliable source for downloading free fonts of high quality. Most of the fonts featured in Font Squirrel also comes with commercial licenses. To avoid complications, the site makes it quite easier for users to check the licenses for each font before downloading them.
Font Squirrel also features a set of useful tools, including a Webfont Generator for creating your own web fonts and a cool Font Identifier, which helps you detect and find fonts based on images.
3. FontSpace
This site features a massive collection of over 32,000 free fonts from over 2,100 designers. It’s also the home for more than 746,000 members who enjoy downloading free fonts.
You can use FontSpace to find plenty of free fonts to use for your personal projects. Simply hovering over a font while browsing is enough to find out the license for the font before downloading.
As a registered member, you can even create a personal favorites collection to easily access the best fonts and you can also contact the designers and even donate a few dollars if you like.
4. DaFont
DaFont is another popular platform for downloading free fonts. Most of the fonts in the site only support personal use, but there are plenty of fonts that come with commercial licenses as well.
One feature that makes DaFont stand out is its category system. Which lets you browse its fonts collection based on different themes like horror-themed fonts, video game fonts, valentine themed fonts, and much more. This offers designers an easy way to quickly find fonts for different types of projects.
5. Abstract Fonts
Abstract Fonts is a site that includes a curated collection of high-quality fonts. Most of the fonts available in the collection are free to use with both your personal and commercial projects. Just remember to check the license before downloading.
The website also features a fun category system for easier browsing. You can find fonts of different themes quite easily using these visualized categories.
6. Behance
Behance is not exactly a platform for fonts. It’s like a social network where designers create portfolios of their best work and share designs with each other.
Designers share lots of free content on Behance, this includes free fonts as well. A quick search on the platform will bring up an endless list of fonts that are available to download at free of charge.
The best part of finding fonts on Behance is that the fonts you find on this platform usually feature unique designs and are less used than the fonts you find on other sites.
7. FontStruct
FontStruct is actually a font building tool that allows you to create your own fonts with geometrical shapes. The tool generates TrueType fonts using your designs that can be used with any app and for any kind of work you want.
The site also contains a gallery full of more than 43,000 fonts. Most of which are created by people just like you. All free to download. You can even clone the fonts created by other users to design your own unique fonts.
8. 1001 Fonts
Don’t let that name fool you. 1001 Fonts includes more than 9,000 fonts. The site features an often updated collection of high-quality fonts. Many of the fonts are available for commercial use.
You can also browse the fonts in 1001 Fonts according to font style, size, and even font weight to quickly find fonts that match your design projects.
9. Urban Fonts
Urban Fonts is another great place to find free fonts. The site features a more detailed page for each font that shows you all the characters of the font along with a tool to test drive the fonts before downloading.
You can also browse fonts according to different themes and create an account to save fonts for later as well.
10. FontSpring
FontSpring is a premium fonts marketplace full of premium font families. But, the site also allows you to download a couple of free fonts from these font families to use them with your various projects. You can find detailed information about the font licenses in each font page.
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