40+ Excellent Freefonts For Professional Design

Advertisement

The importance of typography in design can’t be overestimated. The accuracy, precision and balance of geometric forms can give letters the elegance and sharpness they deserve. Besides, elegant fonts can help to convey the message in a more convenient way. In fact, while there are many excellent professional fonts (we’ve presented some of them in our article 80 Beautiful Typefaces For Professional Design) there are literally thousands of free low-quality fonts which you would never use for professional designs.

Quality costs. The price of “bulletproof” fonts usually reflects their quality and starts at 50$ per typeface. However, before purchasing a font you will probably use only once in your designs you might want to take a glance at outstanding free alternatives first.

Over the last year we’ve been observing typo-designers and their works; we’ve regularly collected high-quality fonts available for free download and free to use for personal or/and commercial projects. In this article we’d like to present an overview of over 40 excellent free fonts you might use for your professional designs in 2008. What is your favourite?

Please notice:

  • Some images are taken from Gerrit van Aaken’s Typography Essays. Thank you, Gerrit.
  • We haven’t listed Arial, Georgia, Verdana, Trebuchet MS & Co. as well as Calibri, Cambria, Candara, Constantia and Corbel as they are delivered almost “automatically”.
  • You can visit the Free Fonts Section to find more free fonts. The category is regularly updated.
  • We’d like to thank to all typo-designers and foundries for releasing these fonts for free. We appreciate your work and your intentions.
  • Before using fonts please read the license agreements carefully — they can change from time to time.

Excellent Freefonts For Professional Designs in 2008

Gentium
Gentium is a typeface family designed to enable the diverse ethnic groups around the world who use the Latin script to produce readable, high-quality publications. It supports a wide range of Latin-based alphabets and includes glyphs that correspond to all the Latin ranges of Unicode. Gentium examples.

Screenshot

Screenshot

District Thin
A very calm, serious and impressive sans-serif free font from GarageFonts’ District family. The font is available as Mac Postscript, Mac TrueType, PC Postscript, PC Truetype and OpenType.

Freefont

MG Open Moderna

Moderna

Pigiarniq Inuktitut font
Have you ever known about the existence of Nunavut? A small region in Canada with one of the lowest population rate of the world? Probably not. Only 0,01 people live there per km2, mostly Eskimo. The citizens of Nunabut speak four languages — French, English, Innuinaqtun and Inuktitut. Nothing spectacular so far, right?

Few years ago the government of the region has decided to design a new typeface to enable its 28.000 citizens to use all four languages in a uniform manner. The result is a beautiful, rich and professional sans-serif free font. The family includes a bold, heavy, italic, light and regular weights. Examples.

Pigiarniq Inuktitut font

Pigiarniq Inuktitut font

Delicious
Special attention was given to character spacing to obtain a homogenic appearance. With it’s relatively large x-height the Delicious can be used for text in smaller point sizes. The Delicious italic is not a slanted roman, but a true italic. Serif, Mac / PC.

Delicious

Delicious

Delicious

Anivers
A robust and rigid font, forgiving, flexible, elegant and also suitable for a broad use: from a stationery to a poster headline. A smashing serif freefont by Jos Buivenga, dedicated to the One-Year-Anniversary of Smashing Magazine. Besides ligatures, contextual alternatives, fractions and oldstyle/tabular numerals Anivers also has a ‘case’ feature for case sensitive forms. Anivers supports CE languages and Esperanto. It has more than 350 glyphs and over 1.600 kerning pairs. Examples.

Anivers Freefont

Anivers Freefont

Tallys
Tallys is a font that is one degree slanted and has large caps, a small x-height and long ascenders. Only roman style is available.

Tallys Freefont

Tallys Freefont

Mido

Mido STF

Fontin Sans
Available weights: regular, italic, bold, bold italic and small caps. It is a sans companion of Fontin and can be downloaded at Mac & PC (OpenType). Fontin Sans is absolutely free for personal and commercial use. Examples.

Fontin Sans

Fontin Sans

MG Open Cosmetica

Cosmetica

Geo Sans Light, by Manfred Klein

Geo Sans Light Freefont

Nadia Serif by Nadia Knechtle, Quersicht )

Nadia Serif Freefont

Yanone Kaffeesatz
This “coffee”-font is supposed to be used in headlines and brief text passages; it shouldn’t, however, be used for body copy. The numbers and currency signs are monospaced, which means that they have the same width. This is useful if you’d like to place them on a restaurant menu beneath each other in a table. The alternative and historic symbols as well as ligatures can be activated via the OpenType-option »optional ligatures«. Released under Creative Commons license. Examples.

Screenshot

Screenshot

JustOldFashion
A font designed by Manfred Klein.

JustOldFashion

Lido STF
The typeface is suitable for all periodicals wishing to abandon inconspicuously the hideous system typefaces with their even more hideous accents and to change over to the contemporary level of graphic design. It is also most convenient for everyday work in text editors and office applications. It has a fairly large x-height of lower case letters, shortened serifs and simplified endings of rounded strokes. Lido STF examples. For professional use you need a valid license which means purchasing the font.

Screenshot

Cardo
Cardo is a large Unicode font specifically designed for the needs of classicists, Biblical scholars, medievalists, and linguists. This font is free for personal, non-commercial, or non-profit use. Examples.

Screenshot

Day Roman
In digitizing this typeface, attention was mainly given to duplicate the technical imperfections of 16th century printing, which have been lost with today’s technologies. In order to accomplish this, some digital type design conventions have been avoided – things like the uniformity of the serifs, overall stroke precision, vertical proportion exactitude. This digitization should work nicely when used anywhere from 10 to 30 pt. Some design oddities, appealing or otherwise, may appear in 30+ pt usage. This serif-font is available in PC Type 1 and PC True Type formats. Examples.

Screenshot

Day Roman

Liberation Serif
Public domain / GNU GPL, Regular, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, PC / Mac OS X

Liberation Serif

Liberation Sans
Public domain / GNU GPL, Regular, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic, PC / Mac OS X

Liberation Sans

Romeral offers aside from optimal legibility an elegant style, rounded forms and sharp geometric structure of its letters. Romeral is designed to produce a noticeable visual impact that invites the audience to the reading due to its sizable thickness. Interestingly enough, the basic idea of this OpenType-font was to find a way to fill the color titles zone in order to create a comfortable atmosphere for the reading experience. It can be used for body copy and headlines. Free to use in personal and commercial projects.

You can get the font sending a personal request via e-mail or comment form. More information is available on Typies, Pablo De Gregorio’s blog.

Romeral

Romeral

Scriptina
Handwriting, PC, Mac.

Scriptina Freefont

Mank Sans
A freefont designed by Manfred Klein.

Mank Sans Freefont

Chúcara
To get the font, contact the designer Juan Pablo De Gregorio or add a comment to the post, explaining, who you are, why are you willing to get the font and how do you intend to use it. The author sends the font via e-mail.

Chucara

Qlassik

Qlassik Freefont

Diavlo
Jos Buivenga’s freefont that is a bit square and sharp. Great attention has been given to detail, spacing and kerning. It contains more than 300 glyphs and over 1.300 kerning pairs. So Tørwald can pick up his Téléphone without worrying. Diavlo contains (some) East European characters and also Esperanto characters.

The final release contains 5 weights: Light, Book, SemiBold, Bold and Black. Diavlo contains a bunch of ligatures and contextual alternatives (OpenType feature) to prevent undesired collisions.

Diavlo Freefont
Diavlo Freefont
Diavlo Freefont

Engel Light Ltd
Sans-Serif, PC, Mac, no special characters available.

Engel Light Ltd Freefont

Cicle
Sans-Serif, 7 weights, freeware.

Fresh Free Fonts - Cicle Font | dafont.com

Kontrapunkt
Slab-serif. Kontrapunkt was awarded the Danish Design Prize for best typeface. The aim has been to develop a distinct font, with regards to both the inidividual character and the overall image as such. The typeface has so far been developed in a light, light italic and bold version.


Freefont

Fontin
The Fontin is designed to be used at small sizes. The color is darkish, the spacing loose and the x-height tall. The numbers of the Fontin have a ‘hybrid’ design. They carry the characteristics of medieval numbers, but their size is larger than the x-height. Mac (Type 1), PC (TTF, Opentype).

Fontin

Fontin

Colaborate

Colaborate

Colaborate
[image via typoblog.ch]

Fertigo
It’s a bit like Laphroaic; the more you get to know it, the more you’ll (probably) appreciate it. With it’s auto-ligatures (no Open Type programms needed), a complete character set and many other unknown features it can be hard to resist. Regular only.

Freefont

Freefont

Steiner
This typeface is ideal for logos and general design. It isn’t very suitable to be used with word-processors as it lacks some symbols and letters. Sans Serif, free for personal use only.

Fresh Free Fonts - Steiner Font | dafont.com

AUdimat (v2)
OpenType, Mac, PC, in four weights: regular, italic, bold, bold italic. Freeware, via fontleech.

AUdimat

Greyscale Basic
A freefont designed by Greyscale [via Computerlove]

Tuffy Freefont

Existence Light
A free sans-serif font designed by Yeah Noah. 3 weights — Light, UnicaseLight, StencilLight. OpenType, PC, Mac OS X.

Fresh Free Fonts - Existence Light Font | dafont.com

Lacuna
To download the font 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. [via Typemotion.de]

Lacuna Reg

Lacuna Reg

Lacuna Reg

Images from Typemotion.de

Com4T Fine Regular

Freefont

Pixel fonts

Style-Force Semplice Pixelfonts
Tiny pixelfonts, Flash-compatible including detailed instructions on how the fonts should be used to achieve the best readability.

Pixelfont Freefont

Pixelfont Freefont

Unibody

Unibody is an optimized screen font family for Macromedia Flash MX and Adobe Photoshop. It’s designed for one point size only, 8 pts.

Unibody Freefont

Silkscreen
Silkscreen is best used in places where extremely small graphical display type is needed. The primary use is for navigational items (nav bars, menus, etc.). Silkscreen also works very well at large point sizes if you’re looking for that chunky, old school computer look so popular with the kids today. Created by Jason Kottke. Silkscreen, with both Mac and Windows versions, is free for personal and corporate use. TrueType, Windows, Mac, Linux.

Silkscreen Freefont

Vitaly Friedman loves beautiful content and doesn’t like to give in easily. Vitaly is writer, speaker, author and editor-in-chief of Smashing Magazine, an online magazine dedicated to designers and developers.

  1. 301

    Does anyone know if these fonts can be used as EOT (embedded open type), or @font-face fonts on websites?

    +2
  2. 302

    Nice list of fonts … thank you

    0
  3. 303

    Thanks a lot …

    -5
  4. 304

    nice fonts…thanks a lot

    0
  5. 305

    Useful information….thanks for sharing

    I am also using calibri, verdana, arial, Trajan Pro…..etc
    i am a web designer and here is my url swebd.blogspot.com/

    0
  6. 306

    Real cute

    visualizer
    breakthrough india.

    -2
  7. 307

    OMG, Scriptina! *sigh*

    -3
    • 308

      *sorry for the necropost* i don’t really know why this is voted down. scriptina does not belong in this list. a lot of the others are lovely, particularly mido. those of you voting this down should keep in mind that design isn’t about a pat on the head and a friendly compliment. criticism is necessary. particularly in this case.

      +2
  8. 309

    Thanks for the nice fonts.

    0
  9. 310

    Really nice selection, thank you.

    0
  10. 311

    Middle of the road

    +1
  11. 312

    These are great – thanks!

    0
  12. 313

    pracas upreti

    May 1st, 2010 8:00 pm

    great collection , i downloaded most of all , but some links are broken.

    0
  13. 314

    Nice post ..thanks for sharing such valuable infor…as i am also associated with this business so i am well aware how useful this article really is..

    0
  14. 315

    Really nice fonts, thanks. I will use them in my next project.

    0
  15. 316

    muy buen paquete de fuentes, gracias por compartirlas

    -1
  16. 318

    These are really useful fonts. Thank you.

    0
  17. 319

    Ist es moeglich Fraktur zu erwerben? Wo und wie? Ich danke ihnen fuer eine Antwort.

    -2
  18. 320

    well these great (although some links don’t work) :(.
    i found lately you can actually embed fonts in your website if you convert them to .woff type (mozilla)
    then i found this tool:
    http://orionevent.comxa.com/otf2woff.html
    it can convert ttf otf fonts to woff type its great!. now my site
    is beautiful!
    (also can convert woff fonts back to ttf which is sweet!)

    -1
  19. 324

    thanks for sharing :)
    it’s really useful

    0
  20. 325

    oh normally !

    0
  21. 326

    download with serial activation…http://www.easy-share.com/f/1326057300/Office 2007

    0
  22. 327

    Thankyou for providing the links here.

    0
  23. 328

    TwitterBackgrounds

    July 15th, 2010 3:28 am

    I was just looking for a list like the one you’ve done. It’s a really good job and so useful for my work! I think I’ll use ‘Mank Sans’ for a next background. You’ll probably see it at viuu.co.uk.
    Thanks for your great post.

    0
  24. 329

    amazing collection :)
    Thanks for the share !!

    0
  25. 330

    Good fonts.

    Matheus Henrique Wichman of BRAZIL

    0
  26. 331

    Really excelent fonts.
    I’d like to collect all.
    Have a great day!

    Yudi

    0
  27. 332

    Very useful. Thanks!

    0
  28. 333

    nice collection ! thanks for sharing it.

    0
  29. 334

    Thank You.. Really excelent fonts.

    0
  30. 335

    Andrei Pintica

    August 24th, 2010 4:37 pm

    Nice collection ! Thanks, cheers !

    0
  31. 336

    Very nice and useful collection. Will use them in my blog. Thanks for sharing.

    0
  32. 337

    please list the fonts using in professional websites

    +2
  33. 338

    Thank yoooooou – you guys are awesome!

    0
  34. 339

    thanks for sharing the greatest professional designs i will use these on my upcoming design
    thanks alot

    0
  35. 340

    Thanks allot for sharing, this is awesome!

    0
  36. 341

    thanx 4 sharing … :)

    0
  37. 342

    How can I free download the font ‘Calibri’ pls advice !

    0
  38. 343
  39. 344

    I like the way the title says (freefonts) when technically most of the fonts are not free

    0
  40. 345

    thank you for sharing, good job

    0
  41. 346

    Great job! Thank you for sharing

    0
  42. 347

    Great work.
    Thank you.

    0
  43. 348

    yes this is a real page…..

    0
  44. 349

    I use font families more than individual fonts, and came here looking for a fresh family.

    But Chúcara strikes my senior eye as a gracefully-rendered and “optimistic” font that I would indeed use in my print work.

    0
  45. 350

    Great selection!

    But Day Roman link is broken;
    http://apostrophiclab.pedroreina.net/0189-DayRoman/dayroman.html
    Anywhere else we can get it?

    Have a great day everyone,
    M.

    0
  46. 351

    Pinaki Krishna Ghosh

    March 1st, 2011 10:22 pm

    Those fonts are really fantastic!
    I am really pleased with those fonts

    0
  47. 352

    Is Just Old Fashion only a PC font? When I went to the link it was only the PC version.

    0
  48. 353

    Great stuff some fantastic fonts here

    0
  49. 354

    Really nice fonts, I will download it. This one is awesome man – “Com4T Fine Regular” and i love this font thanks for shairing :)

    0
  50. 355

    Really nice fonts, I will download it. This one is awesome man – “Com4T Fine Regular” and i love this font thanks for shairing :)

    0
  51. 356

    Very delicate selection of fonts, Vitaly!
    Thanks!

    0
  52. 357

    Great list, although

    >Have you ever known about the existence of Nunavut? A small region in Canada with one of the lowest population rate of the world?

    Nunavut is not a small region by any means!

    0
  53. 358

    thanks for sharing.. nice

    0
  54. 359

    is there a way i could download all the above fonts at one time, instead of doing it one by one??

    0
  55. 360

    I’ve used Fertigo on several clients websites with greeat effect.

    Good list.

    0
  56. 361

    Wonderful post….

    0
  57. 362

    Thanks alot. Am grateful! More grease to your elbows.

    0
  58. 363

    Koco sang pengembara

    October 24th, 2011 7:42 am

    Thank’s.. I like it. The beautiful fonts.. :-)

    0
  59. 364

    Thanks Man,
    I download them. I like your post :-)

    0
  60. 365

    Wow … Thanks! … Thanks!

    0
  61. 366

    Nunavut is three times the size of France.

    0
  62. 367

    nice font

    0
  63. 368

    Some very nice fonts here. Thank you so much.

    0
  64. 369

    António Pinto

    June 7th, 2012 10:28 am

    Smashing work :)

    NOTE: I noticed that the District Thin has a broken link. If you want you can fix it to this adress: https://philsfonts.com/index.php/free_fonts ; it is the official site.

    0
  65. 370

    I like “Lido STF”, but your link is broken :(

    I found in this address : http://www.freefonts.info/details/13045/lido-stf.html

    Update your link if you want.

    Thanks

    0
  66. 371

    really awesome collection

    0
  67. 372

    It would be better if you provided it in a single zip file.
    Anyway nice fonts. Thanks

    0
  68. 373

    If some one wants expert view on the topic of blogging then i advise him/her to visit this web site, Keep up the fastidious work.

    0

  1. 1

    Cosmetica is lovely!

    +2
  2. 2

    All of the MgOpen fonts are available here: http://www.zvr.gr/typo/mgopen/index

    +2
  3. 3

    Does anyone know if these fonts can be used as EOT (embedded open type), or @font-face fonts on websites?

    +2
  4. 4

    please list the fonts using in professional websites

    +2
  5. 5

    *sorry for the necropost* i don’t really know why this is voted down. scriptina does not belong in this list. a lot of the others are lovely, particularly mido. those of you voting this down should keep in mind that design isn’t about a pat on the head and a friendly compliment. criticism is necessary. particularly in this case.

    +2
  6. 6

    I can’t download “MG Open Cosmetica”

    +1
  7. 7

    thank you for sharing, good job yo.. i will download it.

    +1
  8. 8

    Munish Kumar Sachdeva

    August 9th, 2009 8:50 am

    Wow, this is a really good fonts.

    +1
  9. 9

    Man, I bookmarked this at work over a year ago and somehow forgot about it. Just now getting around to downloading these. There are some really amazing fonts in here that I cannot believe are free!

    +1
  10. 10

    Thank you so much! I really love this list of fonts. I have to say these are the best fonts that everyone should have! Really recommend this post and i definitely have bookmarked your site :)

    +1
  11. 11

    Middle of the road

    +1
  12. 12

    is your name registered trademark? :)

    +1
  13. 13

Leave a Comment

Yay! You've decided to leave a comment. That's fantastic! Please keep in mind that comments are moderated and rel="nofollow" is in use. So, please do not use a spammy keyword or a domain as your name, or it will be deleted. Let's have a personal and meaningful conversation instead. Thanks for dropping by!

↑ Back to top