Graphic design relies heavily on the use of typography. Having a library of professional fonts helps to quickly find the perfect typeface to bring your message and your graphics to life. Fonts are powerful design tools and graphic designers can find a ton of high-quality, free fonts on the web. We could just give you the names of free font websites, but we’ve done you one better; here are our top 15 fantastic free fonts for designers. This list includes a range of type styles and all are (to the best of our knowledge) free for commercial use!
1. Delicious /////////////////////////////////////
by Jos Buivenga | Exljbris
“The Delicious is a font I designed because of my admiration for typography. It got a bit out of hand and in two years it resulted in a complete font family.”
2. Sofia //////////////////////////////////////////
by Paula Nazal & Daniel Hernández | Latinotype
“Sofia is a lovely script font made available for free download thanks to Google.”
3. Jura ///////////////////////////////////////////
by Ed Merritt | Ten by Twenty
“Jura is a elegant serif typeface of narrow proportions with distinguishing details. The rounded, wedge shaped serifs offer a more contemporary feels than many serif fonts, while maintaining legibility even at small sizes.”
4. Ostrich Sans /////////////////////////////////
by Tyler Finck | The League of Moveable Type
“Ostrich Sans is a gorgeous modern sans-serif with a very long neck. Comes with a whole slew of styles & weights to suit your fancy.”
5. League Gothic ///////////////////////////////
by Micah Rich, Tyler Finck and Dannci | The League of Moveable Type
“League Gothic is a revival of an old classic, originally designed in 1903. Since the original typeface was created before 1923, the typeface is in the public domain. Thanks to a commission from the fine & patient folks over at WND.com, it’s been revised & updated with extra glyphs.”
6. ChunkFive ///////////////////////////////////
by Meredith Mandel | The League of Moveable Type
“Chunk is an ultra-bold slab serif typeface that is reminiscent of old American Western woodcuts, broadsides, and newspaper headlines. Used mainly for display, the fat block lettering is unreserved yet refined for contemporary use.”
7. Infinity ///////////////////////////////////////
by Tarin Yuangtrakul | Personal Work
“Infinity is a sleek sans-serif that makes use of lines and curves derivative of the infinity symbol.”
8. Lobster Two /////////////////////////////////
by Pablo Impallari | Impallari
“Lobster Two is the updated and improved family version of The Lobster Font, featuring an impressive 79 ligatures and variants that include a new lighter weight and the two new upright variants.”
9. Museo ////////////////////////////////////////
by Jos Buivenga | Exljbris
“Museo started with my love for the letter ‘U.’ This uppercase letter just came to me as an image in a daydream. The top of both stems bent into semi-slab serifs. From this principle I worked out the rest of the uppercase letters. Museo comes in five weights with ligatures, contextual alternatives, stylistic alternates, fractions and proportional/tabular figures and a ‘case’ feature for case-sensitive forms.”
10. Otama e.p. /////////////////////////////////
by Tim Donaldson | Personal Work
“A quiet but confident serif typeface featuring beautiful curves and balanced thicks and thins.”
11. FatFrank ////////////////////////////////////
by Jeff Schreiber | Personal Work
“FatFrank is a big-boned and friendly font with all digits, some diacritical marks, most punctuation marks and a money sign that matters.”
12. Fertigo Pro /////////////////////////////////
by Jos Buivenga | Exljbris
“Fertigo Pro is a beautiful andn improved typeface from Jos Buivenga featuring extended language support, improved glyph shapes, and extra ornaments.”
13. Corki ////////////////////////////////////////
by TypeDepot
“Corki is condensed slab serif typeface suitable mostly for headlines. It’s uppercase only and comes in 4 different styles: normal, rounded and their alternatives with the so called “tuscan” styled serifs and YES all of them are free! It includes 134 glyphs – both Latin and Cyrillic script plus two different manicules and a various arrows.”
14. Dekar ////////////////////////////////////////
by Svetoslav Simov | Fontfabric Type Foundry
“Dekar is a high-quality, free font that serves as a good base for any design project whether it be web, print, t-shirt design, logo etc.”
15. Dancing Script /////////////////////////////
by Pablo Impallari | Impallari
“Dancing Script is a lively casual script where the letters bounce and change size slightly.
Caps are big, and go below the baseline.
Dancing Script references popular script typefaces from the 50s and works well for a friendly, informal and spontaneous look, especially when used with sans-serif fonts, so the spontaneous effect is enhanced by contrast.”
We hope you enjoy the fonts on this list! If you have a favorite, FREE font that we didn’t mention here, feel free to comment and let us know! We love finding and sharing new fonts and font resources with our fellow designers.
*When this post was written, all listed fonts were free for commercial use. When using fonts, please read licensing agreements carefully, as usage rights may have changed.
