The more I design, the more I love finding awesome new fonts. It’s like finding a valuable baseball card in a shoe box full of common cards. I keep collecting them in order to fill my designer’s toolbox with a tool for every job. My collection has become quite large; fortunately there are some good options out there for keeping your fonts organized, however, that is a different topic, for a different day.
Their are many good sites available for free font downloads. The three that I visit the most are dafont, fontcubes and urbanfonts. A lot of these sites overlap fonts, but they are all worth a look. I definitely frequent dafont the most.
I’ve put together a list of my favorites, that I feel every designer should put in their toolbox.
The best free fonts for designers (in no particular order) are…
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Scriptina - A gorgeous script font that can be used to create a vintage look. Some of the loops run together and the spacing can be funky, but overall I love the look!
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Bleeding Cowboys - I just think this font is flat-out cool. Plus you gotta love the name! An awesome and versatile grunge font.
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Birth of a Hero - Another grunge font, although somehow it gives a retro feel. I’ve seen it used as part of an album cover, that looked cool!
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Jane Austen - A really nice handwritting type script. Awesome as a signature or faint in the background.
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Flower Ornaments - I couldn’t make a list of the best fonts for designers and not include some dingbat fonts. These are beautifully crafted decorative elements that can really help a design.
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Journal - A very nice handwriting font that looks great on paper elements. I used this effect on my navigation for my portfolio site, Houle Designs. Shameless plug, I know
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Windsong - In some ways this font is similar to scriptina, but I think it’s a little more elegant and versatile.
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Christopher Hand - Another hand written font. This one is a lot of fun and can be used that way.
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WC Rhesus B BTA - Awesome set of splatter and spills for grunge elements. This is the font that I used to design the MyInkBlog splatter logo. Definitely a nice font to have in your toolbox, I still haven’t figured out the name however.
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Yanone Kaffeesatz - Stunning headline font, not great for long paragraphs.
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Qlassik - Awesome simple font with great spacing and feel. Has interesting curves and intricacies just check out the ‘Q’ and the ‘k’ below.
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Diavlo - Some fonts just look cool! Diavlo makes for a nice option to have; looks good in a techy setting.
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Fertigo - Is another font from exljbris. Honestly I could have put everyone one of his fonts on this list; this designer is awesome, and he keeps his fonts free!
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Birds of a Feather - Awesome bird silhouettes, make great design elements.
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Butterflies - Back-to-back dingbats, I can’t help myself.
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Hanford Script - Script fonts often come in handy, here’s another for your arsenal.
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Dear Joe Four - I love the look of grunge and script mixed. This font is my favorite example of the two styles merged.
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Saginaw - Another beautiful script font. Stylish, with a hand written feel.
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A Bite - A lot of the grunge fonts on this list are designed by Billy Argel. Another incredible font designer, that doesn’t charge for his fonts.
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Trashco - A unique grunge font with fun decorative elements built into the font.
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Dirty and Classic - Just like the name says!
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Asenine - A nice san serif option. Makes for a clean elegant feel.
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Jey - Another grungey script font. Cool signature option.
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VTC Joelenhand - Well crafted hand written font.
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Santos Dumont - Another example of an awesome Billy Argel font.
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Seeing Stars - One last dingbat font for good measure. Seeing Stars comes in handy often.
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Delicious - One of the best fonts to be created in a long time. Quite possible the best and most useful font on this list.
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Gentium - I had to put one serif font on the list. This is a beautiful option that does well in ad copy.
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Mal De Ojo - A cool grunge font with some dingbats mixed in.
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Fontin Sans - Gorgeous san serif alternative
There you have it, 30 of my favorite fonts that make my job as a designer much easier. I know there are many more; what are some of your favorites? Drop me a comment below, let me know what font you can’t live without.
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June 28th, 2008 at 1:56 pm
Thank you!
June 28th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Great, thanks for sharing ***
July 4th, 2008 at 11:20 am
I have been searching high and low for some specific written licensing info about windsong. I can’t seem to locate contact info for the designer either. You don’t happen to have any of that information do you? Thanks!
July 4th, 2008 at 12:00 pm
Hi Dana,
It was very difficult to find any info on this font. You can go to http://www.abstractfonts.com/members/16670 and register to email Ivan Philipov who is the site moderator for the font. Also it is copywritten by Bright Ideas Magazine. Hopefully this helps and is a starting point.
July 6th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Excellent list, thank you. Asenine and Jey both take you to Asenine’s download page, fyi.
July 6th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
“WC Rhesus B BTA - Awesome set of splatter and spills for grunge elements. This is the font that I used to design the MyInkBlog splatter logo. Definitely a nice font to have in your toolbox, I still haven’t figured out the name however.”
So the splatter = blood. Rhesus for the RH blood typing system and B for the ABO blood typing. Hmm. BTA is beta maybe?
July 6th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Hi Jeffrey,
Thanks for the heads up about the link, that’s fixed now. And good call with the name, that sounds about right to me.
BTW nice SEO site you have there!
July 7th, 2008 at 7:37 am
thanks for all the free stuff!!! =)