Need some terrifying type for your designs? Step this way for some frighteningly free Halloween fonts.
(Image credit: Jim McCauley)
It's officially spooky season, so we've compiled a list of our favourite spooky fonts to add some creepy character to your designs. Whether you're making custom invitations, decorative banners, or amping up the creep factor on a personal project, these frightening fonts are perfect to add a little Halloween flair.
From movie-inspired designs to deathly dingbat fonts, below are 15 fonts to use in your terrifying designs – what's more, they're all free for personal and commercial use. For more spooky design inspiration, take a look at our collection of the best horror movie posters and for a broader (but sadly less spooky) typographical selection, check out our collection of the best free fonts.
The best free Halloween fonts
01. Coraline's Cat
(Image credit: Sinister Fonts)
Our first fearsome font is Coraline's Cat, inspired by Henry Selick's 2002 stop-motion film. As a Halloween movie staple, this movie-inspired font is the perfect choice for party invitations or adding a little gothic flair to your personal blog. With its spindly, bespoke lettering, this font has a spooky charm while still maintaining legibility. Coraline's Cat is free for personal and commercial use but you can make a voluntary donation to its creators over at Sinister Fonts.
01. Double Feature
Come up to the lab and see what's on the slab (Image credit: Jim McCauley)
It's hard to beat The Rocky Horror Picture Show for a bit of Halloween viewing, and if you want that Rocky Horror vibe for a design then Double Feature should do nicely. Based on the Rocky Horror title font with plenty of dripping blood, it's ghoulishly bold and free for both personal and commercial use.
SAY IT! (Image credit: Jim McCauley)
02. Nosferotica
Get that sexy vampire look with Nosferotica (Image credit: Jim McCauley)
For a sexy, vampiric vibe, get your teeth into Nosferotica. A horror font designed by Sinister Fonts, it's a terrifyingly tall and thin serif, and while it's all-caps, the lowercase set is more bottom-heavy while the uppercase is top-heavy – mix them up for an unsettling effect. It's free for personal and commercial use.
03. Buffied
In every generation there is a chosen font (Image credit: Jim McCauley)
If all this vampire talk's getting a bit much, here's the antidote: a font inspired by Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Created by GemFonts, Buffied is modelled on the Buffy title font, comes with an upper and lowercase set, and it's free both for personal and commercial use.
04. Halloween Spider
Halloween Spider's more scared of you than you are of it (Image credit: Jim McCauley)
Feeling arachnophobic? Stay away from this eight-legged font, then. Halloween Spider is a bold brush script with nice thick strokes, and adorned with both spiders and spider webs. Try layering it in different colours and cutting out the spiders and webs in the top layer to add to the effect. It's free for personal and commercial use.
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05. Fiddums Family
CLICK-CLICK (Image credit: Jim McCauley)
Created by BoltonBros, Fiddums Family is gloriously gothic and inspired by the creepiest, kookiest clan of them all, the Addams Family. Featuring some excellently ornate touches, including some seriously over-the-top swashes, it's a freeware font that's good for personal and commercial use.
06. Vintage Halloween
All the spooky imagery you need in dingbat form (Image credit: Jim McCauley)
As well as standard fonts, we've also found some handy dingbat fonts that'll make it easy to populate a design with plenty of ready-made Halloween imagery. First up is Vintage Halloween from Woodcutter, with a stack of useful pumpkins, bats, spiders, skeletons and more, all fully vectorised and free for personal and commercial use.
07. Freaky Halloween
...and a little more (Image credit: Jim McCauley)
A more stylised dingbat font, Freaky Halloween features 26 glyphs covering most of the Halloween bases, rendered in a minimal, cut-out fashion. Perfect for designs with a more simple look, it's free for personal and commercial use.
08. Wild Wood
Don't go into the Wild Woods alone (Image credit: Jim McCauley)
There are few things scarier than being alone in the woods at night, especially if you've seen The Blair Witch Project. And if you want to evoke that creepy forest feeling, Wild Wood, with its letterforms sprouting gnarled branches, ought to do the job. It's free for personal use.
09. Spiderfingers
Another font to frighten arachnophobes with (Image credit: Sinister Fonts)
Ideal for Halloween designs or maybe for death metal album covers, Spiderfingers features tall, grungy letterforms that taper down to viciously sharp points. Designed by Sinister Fonts, this is another freeware font you can use for both personal and commercial work.
10. Ink and Bones
Now hear the word of the Lord (Image credit: Jim McCauley)
Nothing says Halloween like a spooky skeleton, and if that's the sort of feel you're after then Ink and Bones does exactly what it says on the tin. Its hand-drawn letters and symbols are built out of bones, and while it's all-uppercase, the lowercase letters are solid strokes while the uppercase set is highlighted by some outlined bones. It's free for personal and commercial use.
11. Castle Dracustein
Stay away from the creepy castle (Image credit: Jim McCauley)
Mix up your horror brands with this sinister font from, appropriately enough, Sinister Fonts. Perfectly evoking the look of vintage horror movie posters, Castle Dracustein is another Halloween font that tapers down for a striking visual effect, and its eroded edges just add to the creepiness. It's free for personal and commercial use.
12. Hallowen
Please don't write in (Image credit: Jim McCauley)
No, that isn't a typo. Hallowen is a spooky outline serif font by Peter Olexa, and it wouldn't look out of place on the poster for a Tim Burton film. It's an all-caps font with a set of smaller glyphs in the lower case, and it really comes alive if you alternate between them, and it features some lovely spiral terminals for added visual interest. It's free for personal use only.
13. Ill October
A final helping of demonic dingbats (Image credit: Jim McCauley)
Finally, here's one last set of Halloween dingbats. Featuring plenty of skulls, spiders, snakes and more besides, Ill October is another minimal dingbat font packed with glyphs that look like they've been carved into a pumpkin, and it's free for personal and commercial use.
15. Germs
(Image credit: Divide by Zero)
Germs is a playful font that's perfect for adding a cute monster-inspired twist to your design. Created by Divide by Zero, Germs is inspired by their childhood doodles, transforming ordinary font into ferocious monsters with jagged teeth and glaring eyes. Best used for headlines due to its detailed design the font is available for personal and commercial use.
To get into the spooky season check out the new Smile 2 campaign that's been terrifying film fans beyond the cinema screen. For more creepy designs, check out the best horror artists for Halloween inspiration.
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Jim McCauley is a writer, performer and cat-wrangler who started writing professionally way back in 1995 on PC Format magazine, and has been covering technology-related subjects ever since, whether it's hardware, software or videogames. A chance call in 2005 led to Jim taking charge of Computer Arts' website and developing an interest in the world of graphic design, and eventually led to a move over to the freshly-launched Creative Bloq in 2012. Jim now works as a freelance writer for sites including Creative Bloq, T3 and PetsRadar, specialising in design, technology, wellness and cats, while doing the occasional pantomime and street performance in Bath and designing posters for a local drama group on the side.
