15 Fresh High-Quality Free Fonts
Every now and again we take a look around, select “fresh” high-quality free fonts and present them to you in a brief overview. The choice is enormous, so the time you need to find them is usually the time you should be investing in your current projects. We search for them and we find them, so you don’t have to.
In this selection we’re glad to present you Junction, Nadia Serif, Nilland, CartoGothic Std, Bergamo Std, Comic Serif, Birra Stout, Vegur and a couple of other high-quality free fonts. Please read the license agreements carefully before using the fonts — the license can change from time to time.
- 15 Beautiful High-Quality Free Fonts
- 40 Excellent Free Fonts For Professional Design
- You can find over 80 more free fonts in our section Fonts.
15 Fresh High-Quality Free Fonts
Junction [ Download the .zip-package ]
Designed by Caroline Hadilaksono, Junction is a humanist sans-serif typeface. It has elegant, clearn and very sharp glyphs, but contains only 100 most common symbols. Like Gentium it perfectly fits to body copy, but can also show its strengths, balance and beauty in headlines. Here are some insights from the designer:
“Inspired by my favorite humanist sans serif typefaces, such as Meta, Myriad, and Scala, Junction is where the best qualities of serif and sans serif typefaces come together. It has the hand drawn and human qualities of a serif, and still retains the clarity and efficiencies of a sans serif typeface. It combines the best of both worlds.” Available as OpenType. Released by The League of Moveable Type, an open-source type movement.
Nadia Serif [ Download Mac (Postscript) | Download PC (TrueType) ]
This serif typeface is available for free download; the only requirement for using it is to send a PDF or any other copy of the work using this typefaces to its designers.
Nilland
A beautiful slab-serif typeface, designed by Manfred Klein. The family consists of 6 weights, regular, bold, extra bold, black, small caps and small caps bold (link and images via DerSven.de).
CartoGothic Std
A legible sans-serif typeface, in the opentype format; 4 weights are available: book, italic, bold and bold italic. License agreement. Win and Mac.
Bergamo Std
A free serif typeface, in the opentype format; 4 weights are available: regular, italic, bold and bold italic. License agreement.
HVD Comic Serif [ specimen ]
So many designers hate Comic Sans. They think people who don’t know design are overusing this funny little friendly font, which is nearly every time out of place. Some years ago, type designer Hannes von Döhren created a free alternative to Comic Sans. The difference: It has serifs and a much cooler look. OpenType Pro, designed by Hannes von Döhren.
Birra Stout [ specimen ]
An elegant old-style typeface with strong elements of handlettering, designed by Darden Studio.
Vegur
This humanist sans-serif family is available in OpenType-format in three weights: ExtraLight, Regular and Bold. The typeface can be perfectly used both in body copy and in headlines.
Whiteboard Modern [ currently offline, the link was removed ]
An original hand-drawn typeface, designed by Jay Hilgert. The typeface is currently being designed, so currently only the demo-version is available.
Neighbourhood Type [ Download the .zip-package ]
“I took Neighbourhood as a challenge to create something that had the graphic expression of a display face while still maintaining some of the functionality of a text face. In the end I created something that I feel has the best of both worlds; an ultra simple sans serif text face with a large set of alternates which when combined with the regular characters create a new graphic display look”. Designed by Andy Chung.
Resonance Bold (Registration is required)
This type family consists of smooth curves and fine lines, and evokes the spirit of the 1970s. Resonance is a great typeface family for use on retro and vintage posters, flyers and also headings.
Layer Cake
An experimental typeface, designed by Jakob Nylund. Isometric multiple layered type. Capital letters A-Z, available only in Illustrator AI format.
Reminder: Mayberry Pro SemiBold (registration is required)
AscenderFonts released the font Mayberry Pro Semi Bold available for free download. This font belongs to the Mayberry Pro family. This family is a humanist sans serif designed by Steve Matteson to provide optimal legibility on screen in applications ranging from User Interfaces to web pages. The registration is required to download the font.
Bonus: Eco Font and Flaminia Type System
Eco Font [ Download .ttf ]
A Dutch company SPRANQ from Utrecht has developed a new typeface that is supposed to cut ink usage by about 15% – the trick is that the “Ecofont” has little holes in the letters. There is also Ecofont Professional Edition available: every corporate typeface can be adjusted. (via Twenteinside)
Flaminia Type System [ Download the .zip-package ]
Flaminia is a typographical system that allows its users and its future designers to quickly morph (through the use of Multiple Master axes) different variants of the glyphs. By allowing minimal changes of only one variable in the letter shapes, Flaminia also provides a tool to study which are the most relevant factors in the process of reading signs, and can be used free of charge for further researches in this field. Created by Andrea Bergamini, released by The League of Moveable Type, an open-source type movement.
More free fonts!
For more free fonts, please consider visitiong our previous posts:
- 15 Beautiful High-Quality Free Fonts
- 40 Excellent Free Fonts For Professional Design
- You can find over 80 more free fonts in our section Fonts.





















Phill
May 11th, 2009 6:42 amTidy – thanks
deffault
May 11th, 2009 6:47 amI loved it!
snnaqvi
May 11th, 2009 6:47 amGreat stuff, thanks SM
spocarum
May 11th, 2009 6:48 amWhy give all my personal data incl. CC to download Resonance BOLD. Check “free” fonts first.
dudelord
May 11th, 2009 6:54 amawesome! the last ones rock the boat
Cole
May 11th, 2009 7:18 amYour link for the Flaminia Type System is wrong.
Otherwise a fab list (as always) ;)
jhoysi
May 11th, 2009 7:31 amSome very elegant fonts on the list. Great finds!
Siah
May 11th, 2009 7:43 amthanks SM!
Nathan
May 11th, 2009 7:57 amI’m sorry, but I cannot see how I can use these on my site. Can you not please advertise a television instead?
olybop
May 11th, 2009 7:58 amnice selection thanks !
Horttcore
May 11th, 2009 8:00 amWhiteboard Modern seems to be broken… or am I an idiot?
Mugros
May 11th, 2009 8:03 amecofont is ridiculous.
Vygantas
May 11th, 2009 8:13 amthank you, sir
antofa
May 11th, 2009 8:40 amWell, that Daphne font family looks a lot like a knock-off of Museo by Jos Buivenga.
Luke
May 11th, 2009 8:45 amWhere do you guys find these gems! Thanks a lot ill be use these definitely
rutiso
May 11th, 2009 9:08 amGreat …! You are the best. Thanks a lot!
Tobbi
May 11th, 2009 9:16 amGreat! Thanks.
Crystal lee
May 11th, 2009 9:37 amlove it
Tim Smith
May 11th, 2009 9:43 amGreat list!! Thanks
JOHNNY BOY
May 11th, 2009 9:49 amI love em’. This is why I totally support smashing mag. The Fonts!
Thomas
May 11th, 2009 9:50 amFree is not open. You should distinguish clearly.
nomad-one
May 11th, 2009 10:07 amWow, some of the comments on this site are really strange, even scary.
As always thanks for the great collection of fonts you guys have rounded up for us.
Andy Morrow
May 11th, 2009 10:22 amStop putting these shitty lists – who cares about fonts? It’s all about content anyway; I am unfollowing you now and unsubscribing from your RSS-feed. Better come up with something useful for a change! :-(
Edward
May 11th, 2009 10:33 amCool, I find some of them useful. Thanks!
Manlio Napoli
May 11th, 2009 10:36 amCartoGothic Std and Bergamo Std are clones of Frutiger and Bembo… shame!!!
Jeff
May 11th, 2009 10:45 amDecent list, but largely useless if you already have Myriad Pro and Frutiger. Seems like half of these are just ripoffs. I was also a bit surprised to see a giant F-bomb on the page, too… Classy.
Morph
May 11th, 2009 10:56 amThere is mistake: Nilland is redirected to Neighbourhood zip file…
Salih S. Demir
May 11th, 2009 10:57 amvery cool.
Matt
May 11th, 2009 11:23 amPlease take down Daphne. It is a low quality font. Replace it with Museo, the high quality font that Daphne ripped off poorly.
Alessandro
May 11th, 2009 11:36 amThanks!
NBS
May 11th, 2009 12:03 pmEco-font is one of the lamest ideas I’ve ever heard. Talk about defeating the purpose of a font — readability.
Lailson Bandeira
May 11th, 2009 12:31 pmNice, but I’d love an OpenType version of Flaminia Type System…
Michiel
May 11th, 2009 12:34 pmCarto Gothic is the same as Frutiger
mathiz
May 11th, 2009 12:49 pmVegur is great but everything is in on the site is japanse… does any have a direct link?
Kraft
May 11th, 2009 1:33 pmKinda tired of being assaulted by the profanity in these postings. I used to love visiting this site. I have two young kids and don’t enjoy seeing some of they’re favorite cartoon characters scream the F word. Unfortunately, I’m probably in the minority.
Ted Graf
May 11th, 2009 1:35 pmGreat list.
How about a link to download them all at once?
Rutger
May 11th, 2009 2:10 pmthat Daphne “font” is horrible and a complete RIPOFF from Museo by Ex Ljbris. See the original that took a lot of effort here: http://www.josbuivenga.demon.nl/museo.html . And how dare they charge for some versions of Daphne! It’s one thing to be inspired, everybody is, but Daphne is beyond that.
sean farrell
May 11th, 2009 2:17 pmhow come i can’t do anything with the flaminia files? vfb file format?
Jos Buivenga
May 11th, 2009 2:19 pmDaphne is a shameless, lousy ripp off from my Museo font, which is far better *and free*!!!
(SM) I am very sorry about it, Jos. The link was removed!
Clever Daisies
May 11th, 2009 2:30 pmThank you! Love your blog!
Umm...
May 11th, 2009 4:05 pmAdrian Frutiger and Robert Slimbach would like to talk with some of these font designers who designed certain fonts featured on this page.
And the League of Movable Type stuff is interesting… except it’s in Multiple Master format. Unless I can find a way to use these without FontForge, it’s useless for web designers.
Aaron Moody
May 11th, 2009 4:09 pmBeen using vegur for some time now, its deffineatly made it into my top 10 lists of fonts, Great font, recomended.
Yuda
May 11th, 2009 4:40 pmNice list of font, definitely useful
Leland Clemmons
May 11th, 2009 5:24 pmThe site that features LayerCake (justmytype.org) has really fscking cool fonts.
lalit
May 11th, 2009 7:42 pmthanx
Rajnish Gupta
May 11th, 2009 9:41 pmHey SMASHED… REALLY PRETTY COOL..
Great thanks to you to help me explore my creative sense….
francisa
May 11th, 2009 9:49 pmthanks!
Shuuun
May 11th, 2009 10:25 pmI am using Myriad Pro for so many Pojects, its my new Arial/Helvetica :)
Andrea Bergamini
May 11th, 2009 11:58 pmrcs
May 12th, 2009 12:10 amThat’s much more like it sm … fine collection …
PD_why don’t you make a menue “kids” and put your “wallpapers” and “dark art” there?
:-)
Johnny
May 12th, 2009 12:16 amThe Eco Font is silly. I suggest they try the same idea with Eco Toiletpaper.
Quakeulf >:3
May 12th, 2009 12:18 amOh god #44, I won’t ever escape that smiley now, I thought I was safe here… ;_;
salami
May 12th, 2009 1:31 amFlaminia is one o the best type families I’ve ever seen!
but…
why there’s only a few glyphs in vfb files of Flaminia typefaces?
????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Shivanand Sharma
May 12th, 2009 2:29 amIf these fonts are not installed by default on the system it would be impractical to use them in webdesign (unless you are using them in images).
Vijayta
May 12th, 2009 3:18 amThanks a lot for such a nice font set :) :)
http://vijaytapanchal.com
Pete
May 12th, 2009 4:38 am@Shivanand
There are enough font replacement techniques out there that let you use non-standard web fonts. Non-standard fonts are no longer an excuse for poor web typography.
Cufon – http://cufon.shoqolate.com/generate/
SiFR – http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/sifr/
jQuery (sifr plug in) – http://jquery.thewikies.com/sifr/
Typeface.js – http://typeface.neocracy.org/
FLIR – http://facelift.mawhorter.net/download/
Tom Bradshaw
May 12th, 2009 4:55 amThanks again Smashing!
Rank Uno
May 12th, 2009 5:22 amlooking at ‘ resonance’, its inspirations are not drawn from the 1970s. Perhaps you are a bit too young, but any student of design should be able to spot art deco lines like thos in this font.
Andy
May 12th, 2009 5:30 amNice article!
Pinky_D
May 12th, 2009 6:37 amThanks! Just what I needed, and perfect timing. Now if only I could design these fonts myself hehehe.
Disposable_Hero
May 12th, 2009 7:51 amAt least Ecofont isn’t called Greenfont…then the designer would have to be smacked.
Chris Robinson
May 12th, 2009 8:07 amdugg, nice roundup, already had most of these but there were some new ones in there.
Mario
May 12th, 2009 8:08 amThe post title sucks (as well as similar ones) FREE WTF $%@*!!!!
free to download, free to download my friends…
Miguel
May 12th, 2009 8:49 amPicky, but italic is not a “weight”.
sama creation
May 12th, 2009 11:54 amThanks! great article
ayb
May 12th, 2009 12:38 pmgreat article ;) i got it
Adam Cernik
May 12th, 2009 1:39 pmaaaah. those free fonts are not so good :)
KC
May 12th, 2009 7:50 pmSweet, thanks!
vinhkoon
May 12th, 2009 8:25 pmnice fonts, thanks!!!!
Jan
May 12th, 2009 11:31 pmGreat fonts, thanks! I especially like Vegur. The site Layer Cake has some really cool fonts as well.
gr8pixel
May 13th, 2009 12:50 amexcellent! thanks for the post. :)
Sloppy Hand
May 13th, 2009 1:16 amUseful stuffs, thanks.
Any of you like western style fonts?
Sloppy Hand @
ROCKBUNCH.com
Romeo
May 13th, 2009 2:37 amHey your “Flaminia Type System ” points to Junction font link :D
Nevertheless excellent collection
yasense
May 13th, 2009 4:24 pmgood~~~ thanks for you~
justpictures.net.tc
May 14th, 2009 12:27 amCarthoGothic is a stolen Frutiger and Bergamo is a stolen Bembo.
Flaminia is great!
Andrea Bergamini
May 15th, 2009 3:08 pmThank you for your appreciation in Flaminia. I would like to make a little note about it though: Flaminia is not a “font”, it is a typographic system to evaluate the design of fonts to be used for signage.
.vfb files are necessary to develop the whole system, because it is based on a Multiple Master with variables that need to be interpolated, and that would be lost uploading .otf or .ttf files.
So all of you designers out there, Flaminia is an opensource project and it still needs a lot of work, but all of you are invited! :)
cheers from italy,
a.
Maximilian Georg Liebscher
May 16th, 2009 5:32 pmThank u^^
satish.borkar
May 19th, 2009 2:54 amhi
Really very nice fonts
i like it
Thanks
satish.borkar
May 19th, 2009 3:12 amhi
its so good
satyaspb
May 19th, 2009 3:14 ami trying my gravatr image
Andrew M.
May 19th, 2009 3:22 pmVegur sure looks like a knock off of Myriad Pro, if you ask me…
gaem
June 5th, 2009 5:58 amthanks for you
Jay Lopez
June 6th, 2009 6:34 pmWow Andy Chung’s & Layer Cake’s work is incredible! Thank you Smashing Magazine!
Rachel Jones
June 8th, 2009 9:56 amThanks, this is the best resource every.
Luke Jones
July 31st, 2009 11:06 pmSweet thank you!!
borda chido
August 4th, 2009 10:31 pmestan bien chidas
borda chido
August 4th, 2009 10:32 pmestan bien chidas
jonas seydel
October 10th, 2009 4:24 amimpressive selection. like the nadia most. many thanks and keep goin!
best regards from germany!
Dave
October 13th, 2009 4:26 pmAn observation:
You have some real assholes commenting here.
It’s FREE … take one, say thank you, step aside.
No bitching about the free stuff, geniuses.
… and now, from me:
Thank you.
aero
October 30th, 2009 2:53 amMayberry Pro SemiBold direct secure download from their site:
https://www.ascenderfonts.com/store/download.aspx?d=bb135486-8633-416c-9661-22623df29685
olis
January 13th, 2010 1:33 amGreat article, thx :) lot of inspiration
Also some nice free fonts fonts2u.com
Jay
January 19th, 2010 9:02 pmHey everyone, if anyone has Myriad Pro for Mac or Win, would you mind sending me a copy? I have been looking for it for ages and cant seem to find it. Thanks again. Jay. jay.townsend@live.com
David
October 5th, 2010 8:43 amFlaminia update: Stop looking for a usable TrueType, OpenType, or Postscript version of Flaminia (aka Flaminia OS). There are none. The designer himself says it right here http://goo.gl/Oj9y on typophile dot com. It’s the comment by berga83. It’s a beautiful proof of concept but an incomplete one at that.
“Although its glyphs are not all completed yet, the multiple masters and the variables I decided to take into consideration are already all present, and the .vfb files provided allowed the design of the signs pictured above.” — Andrea Bergamini
When the League of Movable Type states the Flaminia Type System “can be used free of charge for further researches in this field” at http://goo.gl/xm9K they aren’t kidding.
I commend Andrea Bergamini and The League of Movable Type for what they’re doing. I just wish they would be completely clear that Flaminia is not complete.
That Smashing Magazine presents Flaminia here as a ‘fresh high quality free font” is a testament to the lack of clarity at the League of Movable Type.
Would a generous type designer care to pick up where Andrea Bergamini left off? “Further developments of the project will be uploaded on this page http://www.mintea.org/flaminia/, and credit will be given to those who contribute to it.”
Or maybe Google could commission someone to complete Flaminia OS as an addition to the Google Font API.
I hope this comment can save somebody a lot of time searching for something that does not yet exist (eg. flaminia.ttf or flaminia.otf).
Adalberto Schilmoeller
October 21st, 2010 4:40 amwow this is really good site . i love to comment here . Thank you dude