Smashing Magazine

15 Fresh High-Quality Free Fonts

• By Vitaly Friedman
• May 11th, 2009
• FontsFree FontsTypography
• 94 Comments

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 Fonts⁵²¹
• 40 Excellent Free Fonts For Professional Design⁵³²
• You can find over 80 more free fonts in our section Fonts⁵⁴³.

15 Fresh High-Quality Free Fonts Link

Junction⁴ [ Download the .zip-package⁵ ]
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 Gentium⁶ 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 Type⁴⁹⁷, an open-source type movement.

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Nadia Serif¹⁰ [ Download Mac (Postscript)¹¹ | Download PC (TrueType)¹² ]
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.

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Nilland¹⁴
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.de¹⁵).

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CartoGothic Std¹⁷
A legible sans-serif typeface, in the opentype format; 4 weights are available: book, italic, bold and bold italic. License agreement²¹¹⁸. Win and Mac.

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Bergamo Std²⁰
A free serif typeface, in the opentype format; 4 weights are available: regular, italic, bold and bold italic. License agreement²¹¹⁸.

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HVD Comic Serif²³ [ specimen²⁴ ]
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.

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Birra Stout²⁶ [ specimen²⁷ ]
An elegant old-style typeface with strong elements of handlettering, designed by Darden Studio.

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Vegur²⁹
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.

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Whiteboard Modern³¹ [ 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.

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Neighbourhood Type³³ [ Download the .zip-package³⁴ ]
“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.

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Resonance Bold³⁶ (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.

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Layer Cake³⁸
An experimental typeface, designed by Jakob Nylund. Isometric multiple layered type. Capital letters A-Z, available only in Illustrator AI format.

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Reminder: Mayberry Pro SemiBold⁴⁰ (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.

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Bonus: Eco Font and Flaminia Type System Link

Eco Font⁴² [ Download .ttf⁴³ ]
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 Edition⁴⁴ available: every corporate typeface can be adjusted. (via Twenteinside⁴⁵)

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Flaminia Type System⁴⁷ [ Download the .zip-package⁴⁸ ]
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 Type⁴⁹⁷, an open-source type movement.

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More free fonts! Link

For more free fonts, please consider visitiong our previous posts:

• 15 Beautiful High-Quality Free Fonts⁵²¹
• 40 Excellent Free Fonts For Professional Design⁵³²
• You can find over 80 more free fonts in our section Fonts⁵⁴³.

Footnotes Link

1. 1 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/11/24/15-beautiful-high-quality-free-fonts/
2. 2 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/11/08/40-excellent-freefonts-for-professional-design/
3. 3 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/category/fonts/
4. 4 http://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/fonts/1-junction
5. 5 http://s3.amazonaws.com/theleague/fonts/junction.zip?1234204632
6. 6 http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&item_id=Gentium
7. 7 http://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/
8. 8 http://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/fonts/1-junction
9. 9 http://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/fonts/1-junction
10. 10 http://quersicht.ch/04_labor/04_ft_nadi.html
11. 11 http://quersicht.ch/04_labor/_bilder/nadia_serif.zip
12. 12 http://quersicht.ch/04_labor/_bilder/NADISN__.TTF.zip
13. 13 http://www.dmjx.dk/presserum/skrift.html
14. 14 http://www.dafont.com/nilland.font
15. 15 http://blog.dersven.de/freefonts-sansation-und-nilland
16. 16 http://www.dafont.com/nilland.font
17. 17 http://www.fontsite.com/download-free-fonts/cartogothic-std/
18. 18 http://www.fontsite.com/purchase-info/eula-free-fonts/
19. 19 http://www.fontsite.com/download-free-fonts/cartogothic-std/
20. 20 http://www.fontsite.com/download-free-fonts/bergamo-std/
21. 21 http://www.fontsite.com/purchase-info/eula-free-fonts/
22. 22 http://www.fontsite.com/download-free-fonts/bergamo-std/
23. 23 http://www.hvdfonts.com/freefonts.php
24. 24 http://www.hvdfonts.com/PDF/HVD_Comic_Serif_Pro.pdf
25. 25 http://www.hvdfonts.com/freefonts.php
26. 26 http://www.dardenstudio.com/typefaces/birra_stout
27. 27 http://www.dardenstudio.com/assets/pdf/birra_stout.pdf
28. 28 http://www.dardenstudio.com/typefaces/birra_stout
29. 29 http://www.dotcolon.net/font/font.php?id=1
30. 30 http://www.dotcolon.net/font/font.php?id=1
31. 31 http://www.bittbox.com/fonts/bb-free-font-whiteboard-modern-demo/
32. 32 http://www.bittbox.com/fonts/bb-free-font-whiteboard-modern-demo/
33. 33 http://andychung.ca/work/neighbourhood/
34. 34 http://andychung.ca/files/Neighbourhood.zip
35. 35 http://andychung.ca/work/neighbourhood/
36. 36 http://www.ascenderfonts.com/info/resonance-bold-free-font.aspx
37. 37 http://www.ascenderfonts.com/info/resonance-bold-free-font.aspx
38. 38 http://www.justmytype.org/
39. 39 http://www.justmytype.org/
40. 40 http://www.ascenderfonts.com/info/mayberry-pro-free-font.aspx
41. 41 http://www.ascenderfonts.com/info/mayberry-pro-free-font.aspx
42. 42 http://www.ecofont.eu/downloads_en.html
43. 43 http://www.ecofont.eu/assets/files/spranq_eco_sans_regular.ttf
44. 44 http://www.ecofont.eu/en_pro_ecofont_professional.html
45. 45 http://www.twenteinside.com/profiles/blogs/ecofont-1
46. 46 http://www.bittbox.com/fonts/bb-free-font-whiteboard-modern-demo/
47. 47 http://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/fonts/1-junction
48. 48 http://s3.amazonaws.com/theleague/fonts/flaminia-type-system.zip?1239313368
49. 49 http://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/
50. 50 http://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/fonts/3-flaminia-type-system
51. 51 http://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/fonts/3-flaminia-type-system
52. 52 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/11/24/15-beautiful-high-quality-free-fonts/
53. 53 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/11/08/40-excellent-freefonts-for-professional-design/
54. 54 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/category/fonts/

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