25 Best Free Quality Fonts
» Oct 15, 02:00 AM
Recently I’ve been browsing through the Net searching for the best license-free fonts which would fit as a serious heading for a serious online-presentation. Fortunately, I wasn’t the first web-developer, who was trying to find such fonts. One of the best resources I’ve found was Gerrit van Aaken’s essays collection “Freie Schriften im Portrait” (free fonts in a portrait) in German language. Before reading this article any further I strongly suggest you to visit Gerrit’s site and add it to bookmarks, for it is regularly updated and contains great links and a great fonts library. Besides, I’ve found some collections, created by freelancing typo-artists, such as Manfred Klein’s Fonteria, Designer In Action: Fonts, Typemotion.de, Apostrophic Laboratories’ Collection, Identifont – Free Fonts and others. [Update: Following my statistic data, I’ve found another great resource, which inlcudes links to license-free fonts and is updated regularly. Take a look!]
So I’ve decided to create the Top 20 Best Free Quality Fonts, which are likely to be used rather for official, serious presentations (such as business sites) than a colourful teenager’s homepage.
Most fonts presented below are absolutely license-free which means that you can use them for both private, personal and commercial purposes without any limitations whatsoever. Nevertheless, the disclaimers are changing from time to time, so you better first take a close look at disclaimer before using the font in a commercial project.
If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know (or just comment on this article).
Update: Delicious and Fontin. I am speechless.
Update (04.03.2005): NeueSans was added.
Update (23.10.2006): Some more beauties can be found in the article "19 More Free Quality Fonts" I've published in the Smashing Magazine.
Almost a year ago I’ve posted an article called “20 Best Free Quality Fonts” in my blog - a list of fonts, which are likely to be used rather for official, serious presentations (such as business sites) than a colourful teenager’s homepage. I didn’t expect something unusual, I didn’t think about any traffic problems, provider complaints and negative users’ feedback. But, actually, I should, I REALLY should.
Over this year my personal pick on free quality fonts popped up in dozens of discussions about web-typography and led dozens of thousands of web-developers and curious users to my blog. The page still remains popular today, and it is instantly updated. However, over the last few days I’ve decided to revisit the old sources, take a look at new fonts and choose the most beautiful ones, which aren’t included in my old fonts’ collection. In fact, many new fonts occured - some of them just weren’t available for download one year ago, some of them were created over the last 12 months.
20 25 Best Free Quality Fonts
(compiled by Vitaly Friedman)
0.1 Delicious: Description (contact the author to download the font)
0.2 Fontin: Description (contact the author to download the font)
0.3. Few months ago OurType presented a free quality font NeueSans, available for download as the bonus font of the month. Every month OurType company offers free quality fonts as bonus fonts for download.
To download Bonus fonts of the month, click on the “Download bonus font of the month” star, which appears after the page is loaded.
0.4. AUdimat (freeware, via fontleech): Description & Download
0.5. The Share Font (freeware, via Herbe Kauffman): Description, Download
1. Gentium: Description, Download
2. Lido STF: Description, Download
3. Cardo: Description, Download and Description (English)
Image from
http://praegnanz.de/essays/435/cardo
4. Day Roman: Description, Download
5. Yanone Kaffeesatz: Description, Download
6. Union: Description and Download
7. Pigiarniq Inuktitut font: Description, Download
8. New Media: Description and Download
Image from
http://www.designerinaction.de
Bill Davis let me know that Sylfaen is licensed by Microsoft as commercial font software. Thanks, Bill!
10. JustOldFashion: Description and Download
11. 078MKSD Medium Condensed: Description and Download
Image from
http://www.designerinaction.de
12. PetitLatin: Description and Download
13. Lacuna: Description and Download
(enter the Flash page, click on “Glashaus Fonts” in the navigation menu
at the top, in the opened page click on [MAC] or [PC] in the left menu
to download the font)
Image from
http://www.typemotion.de/_typographie/lacuna.php
14. ATF Antique: Description and Download
15. SlabTallX: Description and Download
16. Vera Sans Mono: Description and Download
17. ClassizismAntiqua: Description and Download
18. HopeRound: Description and Download
19. Blue Highway: Description and Download (only 4 images are license-free!)
Image from
http://www.typemotion.de/_typographie/lacuna.php
Update: 20-25. Peter Saville Graphic Design Fonts Collection
Wolfgang Hartmann has informed me that the font Order 1981 is licensed. Apparently, other fonts presented in the Peter Saville Graphic Design Fonts Collection are the illegal copies of licensed, copyrighted fonts, too. Thanks, Wolfgang!
Update: 26. Baskerville Old Face: Description and Download
Update: 27. Maiola and Ronnia Sans are licensed now.
You’d like to thank Vitaly Friedman? ;) You can support the project and the author, donating money via PayPal (EUR):
» Web-development, Web-Resources @ Oct 15, 02:00 AM
Due to recent spam attacks, all comments will be premoderated. Thanks for understanding.
The Far Side Of The Moon | Émile Nelligan « previous - next » Today is the day after yesterday
d — Daithi Oct 15, 10:11 AM #
Thank you very much.
This should increase the creative output. — Alex Oct 15, 01:53 PM #
thanks a lot ! — Markus Oct 16, 10:42 AM #
Best wishes from Melbourn — James S. Oct 17, 04:08 PM #
Today I noticed that your link to my site included a full session ID. Since there was a regular stream of visitors, the session never timed out and all people were automatically logged in as you and made one order and download after another … ;-)
Ralf — Ralf Herrmann Oct 17, 08:18 PM #
Other than that a great list of fonts.
For some reason I think of a “web font” as having to be installed already on the user’s system. The fonts are beautiful, but it sounds like it’s not likely they are already installed. Perhaps most suited for corporate intranets, where the user’s installed fonts are predetermined? — invadesoda Oct 18, 07:03 AM #
in your web design – I’m a sculptor and have no
idea of how to create a website.
Yours, Patrice Yourdon — Patrice Yourdon Oct 18, 03:03 PM #
“This font is free for personal, non-commercial, or non-profit use. It may also be used to prepare camera-ready copy for papers that will appear in academic journals, even if the author of the paper receives remuneration for article. Any other commercial use (including the printing of books to be sold at a profit) requires the purchase of an appropriate license.” — Jared Hales Oct 18, 09:16 PM #
Any idea? — Gotico Oct 19, 01:06 AM #
Great resource, many thanks. Just a remark: Shouldn’t N° 18 be labeled “HopeRound” instead of “ClassizismAntiqua”?
Best regards
jr — jr Oct 19, 10:16 AM #
very nice samples !! thank you. — modv Michael Oct 20, 08:46 AM #
@Daithi: thanks for a link, I’ll check it out.
@Ralf Herrmann: I guess I should inform you about the link, shouldn’t I? :) Sorry for causing any inconvenience.
@meo: I am not sure, whether all these fonts, mentioned on that web-page, can really be used in an official web-presentation. However, it’s my subjective Top-20, but I am always glad to get new suggestions from the visitors of my page.
@jr: yes, right. Corrected. Thanks! ;)
@Karl Gustaf: emm… was meinst du? :) — Vitaly Friedman Oct 20, 07:32 PM #
I’m tired as well of having just a few fonts when creating websites and displaying text. I have some thoughts on making this more or less obligatory, so designers and visitors! can enjoy richer formatted websites.
If you’re interested, let me know and drop me an email. — Mstyle Oct 21, 02:59 AM #
http://wiki.novemberborn.net/sifr/show/HomePage
Great for using text such as this for headlines. — James Oct 21, 07:02 AM #
i also have a font for free download.. its a wacky one though…
preview it at the bottom of www.emilkozak.com and download it here:
http://www.emilkozak.com/images_content/fartdeco_emilkozakdotcom.zip
and thanks for sharing!!! — emil Oct 21, 02:53 PM #
ich freue mich sehr über die Verlinkung auf meine Site – noch mehr würde mich freuen, wenn die von dort »entliehenen« Fontgrafiken (Lacuna, Blue Highway) auch mit entsprechendem Copyright-Hinweis entnommen würden, wie z. B. bei der Grafik von »praegnanz.de« geschehen. Ist irgendwie höflicher.
Dennoch, liebe Grüße
Heike — Heike Oct 23, 08:44 PM #
http://dejavu.sourceforge.net/wiki/ — BugTomek Oct 24, 12:25 PM #
‘Kaffeesatz’ and ‘Agendia’ may be my favorits; but the sample text to ‘SlabTallX’ is the best I read today. :-D
Thanks! & CU
Martin — Martin Oct 24, 05:58 PM #
Schade! — Uli Oct 24, 07:29 PM #
nochmal Schade! — Uli Oct 24, 07:35 PM #
i want the certificate type of font pleas i hope sir that you give it free.
ok sir thanks
your faithfully Gulfam Hussain
Zeran Lalmy — Gulfam Oct 28, 05:06 PM #
Ronny, to implement fonts with wordpress, try SIFR! http://www.mikeindustries.com/sifr/ — nikto Oct 31, 11:59 AM #
Thanks. — Oishi Kuranosuke Nov 6, 06:43 PM #
I’ll be certain to visit again, please continue with the marvelous content. — Joshua Blount Nov 9, 08:23 PM #
Great job! Beautiful collection. Thanks for sharing.
I love Maiola (in all forms); how could I download it? All I get is a PDF preview. Would you, please, help? Thanks. — Halina Nov 21, 05:41 AM #
lol
:))) — darkM Nov 22, 11:12 AM #
Zeeshan — Zeeshan Nov 24, 11:32 AM #
From Spain,
Hector — Hector Dec 13, 11:41 PM #
also check Font Reactor for more great collections
btw thxs for the links again — Martin Dec 15, 09:23 PM #
also check Font Reactor for more great collections
btw thxs for the links again — Martin Dec 15, 09:24 PM #
dafont.com is also a great resource — Steve Dec 24, 08:20 PM #
I thank you, because I find many fonts that support Greek in there. When I try doing logos in my native language, I’m really at a loss, my favourite classy fonts do not support it.
Good job, Vitaly!
— Sugar Jan 7, 01:56 AM #Thanks for the great list.
Getting through all these download/description pages would be so much easier if I spoke German, though.
— Chris Jan 7, 11:55 PM #Halina: You can get the bold italic version of Maiola for free from fontfont.com
— Paul Wib Jan 12, 04:21 PM #Three first links are wrong. They are the same.
— caiser Jan 14, 03:30 AM #@ caiser: emm… well, actually they have to be the same, for they link to the Praegnanz.de-site.
— Vitaly Friedman Jan 14, 11:09 AM #For the record, those Saville selections are knockoffs of commercial fonts, so I don’t imagine it’s his official page or that he’s responsible for distributing them. It’s a bit of a scam.
— Stephen Coles Jan 21, 06:58 AM #Thanks for the list of fonts; very useful! But it seems the link to the Union font is unavailable – does anyone know the correct URL for it? Or could any of you lovely people share it with me?
— Preacherman Jan 22, 03:51 PM #That’s a great list. Thanks!
I’m a big fan of Day Roman; it’s just idiosyncratic enough to make a good display face.
— Adam Messinger Jan 23, 11:06 AM #Herr Friedman, die Futura, die Sie als New Order 1981 zeigen, ist lt. Gerichtsurteil urheberrechtlich geschützt. Bitte entfernen Sie die Schrift, wenn Sie einen Prozess vermeiden wollen!
Wolfgang Hartmann
Bauer Types
@ Danke, Wolfgang. Entfernt.
— Wolfgang Hartmann Jan 24, 12:54 PM #Nice fonts… :P
— Tudor Jan 24, 05:24 PM #tks so much! I love it!
— juan Jan 24, 06:58 PM #best whishes from, Argentina – LatinAmerica
:) gracias, son muy bellas.
— Karen Jan 27, 10:38 PM #Fantastic site and content.
— coelomic Jan 28, 11:16 AM #Nice collection!
— murko Jan 28, 12:22 PM #Good job.
Where can I get Maiola and Ronnia?
Pancho
@ Panchno: right now both fonts aren't available for download.
— Pancho Otondo Jan 30, 09:40 PM #Great fonts. Let me try them, and I’ll give you a feedback.
— Abhijit Kumar Feb 6, 03:13 PM #Oh my god!!! These are gorgeous… Thank you so much…
— Davy Van Den Bremt Feb 7, 05:13 PM #what about fonce sans: availible on DA and a great font that serves as a stylish alternative to Trbuchet MS?
@ Alterion: Could you post a link? I don't know what you mean.
— Alterion Feb 8, 09:03 PM #too bad Ronnia Sans cannot be download! :(
thanks for your works!
— Triko Moneot Feb 10, 06:54 PM #Cool fonts, cool site, thanks a lot
— Pablo Zuñiga Feb 15, 08:46 PM #Maiola is not free.
Thanks, Mark. I'll edit the post tomorrow.
— mark Feb 22, 11:43 PM #Thank you for the beautiful fonts
— Beatriz Feb 28, 04:41 PM #Stay Sucka-Free!!! also, good lookin’ on the fonts! (a 213 p.s.a.)
— Maurice Reneaux Mar 4, 04:21 AM #I’d also recommend ‘Silkscreen’ by Jason Kottke over at kottke.org
Larabie Fonts has always been a favourite along with Chank.com.
@Benn: these fonts are already listed in 15 best license free pixelfonts. But thanks, anyway. :)
— Benn Glazier Mar 13, 03:53 AM #This is a great selection, but I highly recommend a title change. The current headline implies that these fonts come with no license agreement. Baskerville Old Face for instance is still attached to a license which protects the font against resale and certain modifications. Many of these font files are free for download yes, but there are still stipulations for their use.
@Stephen: Thanks. I'll change the title.
— Stephen Coles Mar 15, 06:39 PM #Thanks Vitaly!
— Michael Mar 15, 11:52 PM #thats like what we specially i need some informative script u have writen
— kill smith Mar 16, 09:37 PM #Misprinted type fonts by Eduardo Recife are beautiful display fonts. And he throws in some awesome Photoshop brushes as well. http://www.misprintedtype.com
@Jill: thanks, Jill. I'll check it out!
— Jill Mar 16, 11:43 PM #can u provide me with rubino sans solid font?
@shaan: I don't provide anybody with fonts. And I am not sure that rubino sans solid is a free one.
— shaan Mar 20, 01:59 PM #Is there any alternative mirror for the “UNION” font?
@Koka: I am afraid, not. At least not yet.
— Koka Mar 21, 08:00 PM #i’m not able to download the 6th font : Union.
— baa Mar 23, 02:28 AM #do u know a place where i still can get it ?
thanx.baa.
Thanks for sharing!
— Nemanja Mar 24, 02:02 AM #For those seeking the Union font, grab it from the WayBackMachine:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040225205030/http://us.uvm.dk/erhverv/specialpaedagogisk_st/
— Karasu Mar 26, 07:19 AM #Feel like using Fontin somewhere….sometime…..
— Arun Vijayan Mar 31, 02:09 PM #At first, I thought several of those fonts were crap. Then I realized that the article author had just re-sized the sample images, which made them look all choppy and aliased.
— sporktoast Mar 31, 04:51 PM #Thanks for the post. I am always on the look out for good fonts.
— Rusty Ellis Mar 31, 07:18 PM #Hey great fonts. Thank you very much. I will definitely come back.
— Bhumi Apr 5, 01:38 AM #Thank you!
— BD Apr 8, 01:40 AM #Hello
— Xreator Apr 11, 12:41 PM #Pretty good a article and also all the blog, great job !
Good Luck
Great collection. Thanks
— James Apr 12, 01:25 PM #this fonts are really Good and very useful fonts for our dail use. thanks
— smith Apr 27, 08:45 AM #Fuentes para descargar. fonts
— EDWING Apr 29, 02:13 AM #Great of you to compile this. :-)
— Leon Apr 30, 01:27 PM #great list !! thanks a lot .do all of these are GNU/GPL licenced??
@niranjan: I hope they still are.
— niranjan Apr 30, 06:18 PM #hii there, did you know about how to grab some font from server, i made some simple flash site using another font, so everybody can see that font without change to another default font(flash)! thanks i hope that everybody can help me with this one! Buzz me with YM! thanks before
— izoel May 8, 04:33 AM #its very nice to see people sharing this kind of info.. great ! keep it up
— flamel May 23, 10:48 PM #Great Fonts…But don’t know how to get these fonts while working on word…. Can anybody help me ?
— aswani kumar May 29, 10:56 AM #Maybe Antykwa Półtawskiego is worth noting; it is one of my favourite typefaces, has slight ‘retro look’, while being clean and readable enough to be used in long text streams. See for yourself: http://www.janusz.nowacki.strefa.pl/poltawski-e.html
— briest May 30, 10:36 PM #The fonts are great!
— Katharina Jun 4, 12:58 PM #Very useful!!!
Thanx!
.IP
— Ilija Perić Jun 8, 05:41 AM #Wow, Jos Buivenga’s fonts are amazing.
— Simon Jun 12, 04:12 PM #great selection of fonts…
— iovany Jun 15, 05:46 PM #thz…really thz.
Nice fonts, but they are all so regular…
I use http://fontso.com/ a lot, they have many nice fonts.
— John Andrews Jun 17, 06:13 PM #hvala puno, pozdrav iz zagreba
— ivana Jun 30, 04:41 PM #thanx a lot, kisses from zagreb
www.dafont.com is a favorite, but these are great too. Thanks for the tip.
— stock_illustration Jul 13, 05:34 PM #Man, these are some awsome resources. Thank you very much!
— Mihai Dragan Jul 16, 12:42 AM #appreciate your kind sharing heart so much!!!!! these fonts are soo useful, great taste!
— Ariel Sit Jul 24, 11:27 AM #Union is limited solely for use with documents pertaining to the Danish Government. It is not free for any other use.
— Darrel Aug 14, 05:53 PM #i love these fonts
— Andres G Aug 16, 03:24 PM #I can’t say that they are the best 25 free fonts, but i can say that you are really one of the best when it comes to share valuable information.
Best regards from Portugal, keep up the good work.
— Tiago Machado Aug 17, 07:43 AM #Thanks for the tips. You get a really good feeling when you find something that’s actually worth downloading from the net. Made my day :)
— Chris Lowe Aug 19, 02:00 PM #I like your collection cos i’m a font designer. Just for myself. But at this moment i need chinese fonts to transfer to bitmaps. Do you know how to do it?
— Valdi Aug 19, 11:34 PM #Maybe this font earns to be mentioned in your very usefull List?
Vollkorn-Brotschrift by Friedrich Althausen, published with a cc-licence.
http://www.grafikfritze.de/?p=43
— hey Aug 27, 11:47 PM #These fonts are truly useful
— blue2 Sep 1, 12:30 PM #Very nice!! Good job, these fonts are great!
— Frode Haugland Pedersen Sep 5, 12:40 AM #Fantastic fonts thanks, all for this page. Much appreciated, now off to play with sifr.
— Surfer Sep 19, 01:15 PM #You left out the BEST free typeface… Kontrapunkt. On October 22 2004 Kontrapunkt was awarded the Danish Design Prize for best typeface. http://www.kontrapunkt.dk/news/ddprize_typeface_of_the_year_2004
— CarpeAgnus Sep 25, 03:30 AM #Thank you very much for this list!!
— Revolution Sep 25, 05:42 AM #Another gem of a site for us font nuts. Much obliged, you’ve earned 50 karma points.
— Mikey Sep 25, 08:34 AM #Great resource, it means I no longer have to sift through the crap to get to the gold.
— Matt Sep 25, 12:04 PM #Very informative post. I appreciate the fonts. I’ve been working on a theme redesign for some time, and these fonts were fun to play with :-)
(Even thought I’m not using any of them, they offered a welcome change to some of the similar title theme’s i’d been creating.)
— Matt Sep 25, 09:12 PM #Great!!
— sky Sep 28, 12:08 AM #Thank you for your post.
Hi,
— Mandarin-learner Oct 4, 01:49 PM #I’d like to share these free Chinese fonts. They are really very beautiful. Free for download.
http://www.clearchinese.com/resources/fonts.htm
Bye :-)
thank you so mauch guys!!!
— sara Oct 12, 01:25 PM #are very nice!
sam
Lovely. Please keep it growing.
— i design Oct 13, 07:05 AM #Thank you for your excellent work! Now I found what I was looking for.
— Benjamin Oct 17, 03:48 PM #Hi Vitaly,
— Co Cotorobai Oct 18, 04:32 PM #we would like to make clear that OurType bonus font/s are not free fonts. They are part of our regular collection and are subject to normal license. We would appreciate it if you would specify this clearly in your comments above. That is important to us, and to the font users, especially because those very fonts are available for download free of charge just for a limited period of time, for promotional reasons. Neue Sans family, for example, is to be released this month.
With thanks, Corina Cotorobai, OurType.
A very good collection of fonts, i am sure they will be a great asset to designers. i appreciate your effort.
— Solid Singh Oct 22, 03:09 PM #I see Jill already told you about Misprinted Type, so I’ll just add a note to say it really rules!
— Anna Oct 22, 09:35 PM #No offense, but many of these fonts look boring. Also, I wonder how many of them are good for readers with reading disabilities (like dislexia). A few of your fonts look like they mirror the b and d—a simple, clear indicator that the font is not good for dislexics. Kudos on your inclusion of the Bitstream Vera font. I’ve always had a like for that font.
— Noir Oct 22, 11:40 PM #According to the 1976 copyright revision act, fonts are not protected under any copyright law, except as software; look at frutiger and Adobe’s myriad.
— Paul Oct 23, 09:48 AM #Boring…? these fonts are styled, expres culture and give flair to content. Great collection. Interested in chinese noodles from Shanghai..?
— Jr Oct 23, 03:10 PM #yeah, nice. good to see a collection of well made and free fonts:)
— sven Oct 25, 02:06 PM #copyright revision act for which country? there is no such thing is international copyright law
— brd Oct 26, 07:58 AM #I’m a font-fanatic and I LOVE this effort of yours. Thank you. I have a geniune appreciation for the aesthetic value of such fonts.
— Johnnie Oct 29, 11:55 AM #Great collection of fonts! Thanks!
— Ian Oct 30, 12:29 AM #estan excelentes, sugestivas, dan pauta para crear brochures. Gracias
— Marvila Nov 18, 06:50 PM #