The best free fonts, from vintage-inspired typefaces to slap-you-in-the-face slab serifs, for Windows and Mac, for a range of design projects.
We’ve scoured the web to present you with a fine and varied selection of free fonts. Including scripts, serifs, and a range of ligatures, these fonts will give you greater flexibility in your designs, and add to your arsenal of design tools.
This list represents the 100 best free fonts we’ve found in a variety of styles. However, for specialist fonts that won’t cost you a penny, Some of the typeface collections listed below can be used on your web projects, but please be sure to check the terms. Now, following a short advert break, join us as we present you with 100 of the best free fonts, which you can download and use today. Let us know how you get on!
01. Dense
Dense currently only comes in Regular but there’ll be more weights to follow
Dense is a versatile, elegant, geometric and compact sans-serif typeface. Three weights have been created thus far: thin, regular and bold. Created by Canadian artist Charles Daoud, Regular is currently the only weight available, but Daoud has said that he’ll update his Behance page with news on how to get the other weights in the near future.
FORMAT: TTF
02. Henny Penny
Henny Penny is a load of fun but retains clarity and legibility
Designed by Olga Umpeleva in 2012 for Google Web Fonts, Henny Penny is an offbeat display font, named in honour of the fairytale character chicken Henny Penny.
Offered by independent type studio Brown Fox, the team describes the design as “a friendly and playful decorative typeface. Its classical nature is successfully hidden behind its very informal structure: There is no common baseline, no common character size and no common slope of the letters. This makes the typeface very amusing. Henny Penny is a headline typeface for using in display typography. It may be used for children’s books, magazines and websites.”
FORMAT: TTF
03. Higher
Higher comes in both TTF and OTF formats
Created by Portugal-based graphic designer Marissa Passos, free font Higher was made as a student project during her time at the University of Porto. The typeface contains a full set of uppercase characters and numbers 0-9. It’s free for both personal and commercial use, and available in OTF and TTF formats.
Format: OTF and TTF
04. Look Up
Filiz Sahin creates another brilliant free font
New York based interactive designer and illustrator Filiz Sahin is quickly becoming known for her free fonts. Often experimenting with an array of different techniques, her fonts are as versatile as her own design style. Look Up is one of the most playful typeface families on our list, with a home-made feel, with little arrows at the edge of each letter.
Format: TTF
05. Woodwarrior
Woodwarrior is a typeface inspired by the north, and the contrast between modern man made structures and untouched nature shaped by wind and ice alone. Created by designer Anton Bohlin, Woodwarrior is one of those free fonts that’s perfect for experimental headlines and eye-catching straps.
Format: TTF
06. Fenix
Graphic designer Fernando Diaz describes this entry to our list as a “serif typeface designed for display and long texts, its foundations are based in calligraphy, with strong serifs and rough strokes. Its proportions seek to gain space in height and width. Fénix is elegant at large sizes and legible at the same time, with a lot of rhythm in small sizes.”
FORMAT: OTF
07. Woodshop
Woodshop comes complete with a full set of upper and lowercase letters, numbers and special characters
Earlier this year, Pennsylvania-based graphic designer Nick Slater released this Woodshop typeface, which he generously offers as a free download. The slab font comes complete with a full set of upper and lowercase letters, numbers and special characters.
FORMAT: OTF
08. Quirky nots
Toronto based typographer Amit Jakhu created this fun and playfully unique typeface for his Typography 6 class. He released it because he wouldn’t have further developed it after finishing college – and we couldn’t thank him enough!
It was a huge learning curve for Jakhu and we think he’s done a great job for a first timer. He’s happy for you to modify it, share it and basically do whatever you want with it. It is fully available to use anywhere; no restrictions!
FORMAT: TTF
09. Vincent
This free type collection was Suarez’s first fully functioning typeface
Vincent was developed by graphic and product designer for NBC Universal Ben Suarez. Created at the end of last year, this vintage-inspired design was Suarez’s first fully functioning typeface, and is a great addition to our list of 100 free fonts.
“Vincent was intended to be used as a title font,” explains Suarez. It was “named after my grandfather who drove a ’76 Chrysler Cordoba and smoked out of an old wooden pipe. He was rad.”
FORMAT: TTF
10. BoB
Inspired by the playful asethics of illustration, Burma-based typographer Zarni has created this cool and characterful font. This kind of typography is perfect for experimentation and will work wonders on posters and headlines.
Coming in capital and lower case letters, BoB also includes numerical symbols as well as a variety of punctuation marks. As free fonts go it has plenty of uses – just be sure to show Zarni some love.
FORMAT: TTF
11. Biko
Biko Black is a big, brash display font that has a touch of class
Biko is a design by graphic designer and visual artist Marco Ugolini: “a geometric sans serif with a strong and yet friendly character”. The name is a tribute to South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko. Perfect for display, copy text and logos, it’s available in regular, and black versions. It’s also one of our typefaces that’s only free for use in personal projects, and as you can purchase the font for a mere 20 Euros for commercial use we felt that it must be included.
FORMAT: TTF
12. Linny
This, one of our cutest free fonts, was designed by Maya aka Linny. It’s based on Maya’s own handwriting and comes in upper and lower case, as well as numbers and punctuation.
FORMAT: TTF
13. Parisish
This is one of the most elegant free fonts, and was created by type designer George Williams; it has the feel of old Paris about it. One of 57 fonts created by the designer, this is one of his most popular, having received over 200,000 downloads. It’s free for both personal and commercial uses.
FORMAT: TTF
14. Baron
Created by graphic design student Frank Hemmekam, this font family is designed for display with Hemmekam describing it as “a free uppercase display typeface inspired by the classic sans serif font families. This typeface is, because of its many alternative options and weights, perfect for usage in posters, logotypes and headlines.” Baron is free for both personal and commerical use.
FORMAT: TTF
15. True Love
Davide Cariani is a UX designer and web developer with a passion for typography, which led to him creating this entry in our list. True Love was created in his spare time and his first type experiment. Inspired by old-school tattoo fonts, glyphs available include letters, numbers, dash and dot.
FORMAT: TTF
16. Flex Display
Developed by young designer Álvaro Thomáz, this is a thin geometric display font, available for both personal and commercial use, with donations to the author greatfully received. With a passion for typography, Thomáz specialises in font and logo design.
FORMAT: OTF
17. Calendas Plus
Calendas Plus is an improved version of Atipo studio’s first typeface, Calendas. The team at the Spanish design agency completely redrew the font with new ligatures and includes a full glyph set. You can download this simply by sharing news of the design on Facebook or Twitter.
FORMAT: TTF
18. GoodDog
A contemporary and decorative font, GoodDog was created by Fonthead Design. The curly typeface is a popular choice, having been download almost a million times since its release. The font comes complete with a full set of upper and lowercase letters, numbers and characters.
FORMAT: OTF
19. Brush Hand New
Brush Hand New is a free brush font based on Flash Bold, a typeface created by Edwin W Shaar in 1939. K-Type’s New version simplifies, lightens and smoothes out ragged edges. Outlines are improved to remove any remaining harshness, resulting in softer, smoother flowing glyphs ideal for titles and display purposes.
Format: TTF
20. Kilogram
Kilogram was based on Nick Curtis’ Anagram
This font was created by KalleGraphics and based on Nick Curtis’ font Anagram. The bold design includes a full set of upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters. Free for personal use.
FORMAT: OTF