Want to download free fonts? These are the best type libraries we've found.
(Image credit: Catherine Falls Commercial via Getty Images)
You can download free fonts from various sites, which can be excellent resources if you're on a tight budget. But where to start? Knowing the best online type libraries can give you the best chance to find free fonts fast and avoid hours of searching. We've been there and done it, and we've compiled a list of the best places to download free fonts to save you some of that work.
As well as the most obvious places to download fonts for free, we've included lesser-known sites, including individual design portfolios. Just make sure you check the licence conditions for any free font you download – many sites have different licence conditions for different fonts, and while some are free for any use, others are free for non-commercial use only.
If you're looking for suggestions for exactly what fonts to consider, see our pick of the best free fonts (we also have a dedicated guide to the best free serif fonts and, for an edgier look, the best free tattoo fonts). One of our favourite font libraries overall is MyFonts, which has both free and paid-for options. See the link below to head straight there or scroll down for more of the best places to download free fonts.
Get fonts from myfonts.com myfonts.com by Monotype is one of our favourite type libraries. It has over 230,000 fonts, from brush fonts to display fonts. Over 900 of them are completely free.
With over 100,000 fonts available in TrueType and OpenType flavours, FontSpace is a useful go-to site to download free fonts. Everything is neatly sorted into a wide range of categories to help you root out what you want. Alongside the typical 'serif', 'script' and so on, there are categories of fonts designed for particular occasions – ideal if you're not quite sure what type of font you're looking for.
FontSpace has over 3,000 designers supplying fonts, and they're clearly labelled so you can be sure whether a font is good for commercial use or should be consigned to personal projects only.
It doesn't have the biggest collection around, but FontM's selection of free fonts is nicely organised into all the categories you're likely to need, and as well as fonts available to download elsewhere on the web, it also has a good few designed in-house. On top of the free fonts, it also has some great-looking premium fonts, with handy links enabling you to quickly buy what you need.
03. MyFonts
Mateur is available for free from MyFonts. (Image credit: Sergey Oleynik)
We've already mentioned MyFonts above. The site has one of the best ranges of fonts to buy, but there are some good freebies available to download to. Just use the dropdown to search for free fonts and you'll see all the free types currently available. There were around 900 at last count.
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04. DaFont
DaFont has a massive archive of free fonts to search – including novelty fonts like this.
DaFont is a truly massive archive of freely downloadable fonts, with all kinds of categories, from medieval to sci-fi, and even novelty fonts like the Pac-Man font above. You can browse by alphabetical listing, style, author or popularity. Many of them are not what you might want for a professional project – and in fact, many of them are only free for non-commercial use, but there are some little gems available to download here.
17. Google Fonts
Google Fonts makes it easy to use web fonts on your site
This might seem an obvious one, but it shouldn't be overlooked. Google Web Fonts makes it quick and easy for everyone to find and use web fonts. All of the fonts are open source, so you're free to share and customise them for your own use, or work on the original design to modify it. You can use them in every way you want, privately or commercially: in print, on your computer or on your websites.
An online marketplace for community-generated design assets, Creative Market offers a selection of free goodies each week – including one font. The design changes each week and is only available for a limited time. Since the fonts on offer here are typically paid-for, you know you're getting a good quality product, and it's a brilliant way to build up a library of different font styles. If you do want to buy something on Creative Market, you can often unlock more fonts and other goodies with qualifying purchases.
Fontasy is an archive of over 1,100 fonts that you can download for free. As well as having a truly pun-tastic name, this resource offers a great range of styles and a pleasant browsing experience (the category list includes an example 'A' in each of the styles – a nice touch). Unless it says otherwise, make sure you contact the designer if you want to use these fonts commercially.
FontStruct is a free font-building tool and community. Users create what the site calls 'FontStructions' using the 'FontStructor' editor (bear with us here), and are encouraged to share once they're finished so that others can download their fonts. This means there are a lot of fonts to search through, and more are added every day.
There's a range of high-quality TrueType fonts available here, ready for use on Windows and Mac. The site's easy to navigate and the best fonts get picked for the FontStruct gallery.
09. 1001 Free Fonts
1001 Free Fonts is a site that likes to under-promise and over-deliver
Misnomer alert! 1001 Free Fonts doesn't feature exactly 1001 free fonts at all. It delivers a lot more than that, probably more in the region of 37,001. The myriad free fonts are handily organised across 64 categories, and there's also an option to browse by designer, so if you find someone whose work you like, you can see everything else they've created.
Abstract Fonts has one of the cleanest interfaces of all the online font libraries, and it's super easy to navigate. There's a custom font preview option, the terms are outlined clearly and the site's updated regularly with an ever-growing array of fonts for you to choose from.
Neogrey is not a font library as such but the personal portfolio of one designer, Ivan Filipov. Working as a graphic and web designer, he's created some stunning fonts that he's very generously made available for free download. We particularly love his multi-coloured vector fonts.
Glukfonts is another personal site. This one belongs to the Polish designer Gluksza, who generously offers some nicely designed typography. You can download free type and other design resources too.
This is another alternative option for downloading free fonts. An independent type foundry launched by Bulgarian designer Svetoslav Simov, Fontfabric includes a lot of paid fonts but its freebie section is a great place to find some unique freebies.
Founded by Riley Cran and Tyler Galpin, Lost Type is a type foundry that offers you the chance to pay whatever you like for a font (and yes, it's possible to type in '$0' for a free download). Like the option above, you don't have a massive range of fonts here, but the advantage is that you can find some unique options.
Want to download free fonts for commercial use? Then Font Squirrel is the place to head. The quality of the fonts is high, they're mostly @font-face compatible, plus it's got fun features like the Font Identifier, where you can upload an image with type and it'll tell you the fonts that match. It's a great resource.
GitHub project The League of Movable Type is a typographical revolution in the making and anyone looking to download free fonts should make a beeline for it. The very first free and open-source type foundry, it's a hand-selected group of typographers who've created a great set of high-quality free fonts for all to download, such as the popular League Gothic.
Behance might not be the most obvious place to turn to download free fonts, but it's a popular platform for designers to showcase their work, and that includes type designers showcasing their fonts. The only difficulty is that you'll have to hunt them out.
There's work of all types on here, so you'll need to add some filters to get to the free fonts, but once you've done that there are some great options to download. Whether you want a slab serif, script, tattoo or handwriting font, you're sure to find something that suits you if you have the time to root around.
18. Dribbble
(Image credit: Dribbble)
Dribbble is a similar kind of resource to Behance. Designers use the site for networking and to present portfolios of their work for the eyes of potential clients. As with Behance, some generous designers also share fonts they have created. Unlike the free fonts libraries that we've mentioned, Behance and Dribbble aren't intended as sites to download free fonts from, so it's not as easy to find a specific style of typeface that you might be after, but they can turn up some inspiration that could serve for future projects. On Dribbble, there's a free fonts tag to help you locate them.
Rosie Hilder is Creative Bloq's Deputy Editor. After beginning her career in journalism in Argentina – where she worked as Deputy Editor of Time Out Buenos Aires – she moved back to the UK and joined Future Plc in 2016. Since then, she's worked as Operations Editor on magazines including Computer Arts, 3D World and Paint & Draw and Mac|Life. In 2018, she joined Creative Bloq, where she now assists with the daily management of the site, including growing the site's reach, getting involved in events, such as judging the Brand Impact Awards, and helping make sure our content serves the reader as best it can.
