It's Christmas! Well, not yet, but then if you've been working on any festive commissions this year then the chances are that the deadlines have already been and gone. However just as there always turns out to be a last-minute present you need to buy on Christmas Eve, there's also going to be someone who needs a card or party invitation in December.
To help you out if you find yourself in that situation, we've gone in search of some of the latest free fonts for Christmas projects. They're free for personal use, but if you need to use them in a commercial project then they can all be licensed for not very much money. Need more? Check out these free script fonts.
01. Merry Christmas
'Merry Christmas' is a weird phrase when you think about it. You never wish anyone a merry New Year, birthday, anniversary or anything, so why does Christmas get all the merriness? We may never know; it's a mystery to ponder as you brighten up a festive design with this Merry Christmas font.
Every single big jolly letter is adorned with a sprig of holly and berries; for added effect, be sure to drop an adjustment layer on top and colour them in.
02. Badinerie Christmas
The standard version of Badinerie by Jean Boyault is an elegant cursive font that would look perfect on a Christmas card, but hold on just a second, because there's also a special Christmas version that looks even better.
While Badinerie has optional flower ornamentations to brighten up your work, Badinerie Christmas features all manner of festive decorations to give your design that extra-Christmassy feel.
03. Christmas Lights
Everyone loves some shiny Christmas lights, and this free font from Sunkissed Minimalist Co does a good job of recreating the effect.
Christmas Lights is a hand-drawn holiday font with each letter encased in a traditional Christmas light; we'd recommend putting your text along a gently curved path for extra impact and setting each letter in a different colour, while for the ultimate in realism, you should set at least one in black, because there's always at least one broken light
04. Bauble Monogram
If you're going to have Christmas lights then you definitely need some baubles as well, so here's a free font that fits the bill.
Bauble Monogram features a Times-ish serif within a bauble silhouette; again, for maximum effect you're going to going to want to set each letter in a different colour, and if you really want to go for it you could place each letter separately with slightly haphazard positioning and rotation. It's all in the details.
05. Snow Blue
One tried and tested piece of festive visual shorthand for designs is to add snow to the top of lettering to give it a wintry feel; Snow Blue saves you the effort of painting it on yourself.
Created by Letterdreams, it's a fun display font with chunky, cartoony letters, numerals and punctuation, each of them ornaments with a thick layer of snow; you can almost feel the temperature dropping as you type out your text.
06. Santa Claus
Ah, here he is. Capture the spirit of old Saint Nick with Santa Claus, a gorgeously medieval-looking font family that looks like it was hand-drawn using wide-nibbed calligraphy pens.
As well as a regular font containing upper and lowercase letters, punctuation and decorative special characters, there's also a deco set full of lovely snowflake dingbats that you'll want to use to give your designs that final festive flourish.
07. Christmas
No messing about with clever titles here; Christmas is a lively script font featuring uppercase letters supplemented with bauble-like ornamentation. Created by Jacky Hernandes, it's perfect for those last-minute cards and invitations.
08. Comfy Christmas
To finish off, here's a font that thoroughly encapsulates the meaning of Christmas: getting nice and comfortable in a big armchair after over-indulging on food and drink.
Comfy Christmas' big, bold and friendly characters look like they've feasted well and they're just about to drop off in front of a James Bond film after a second helping of Christmas pudding, and who can blame them? And as an added Christmas bonus, there's both a standard font and a full set of italics.
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