Defining what makes a graffiti font isn't as easy as you would think. That's because the word ‘graffiti’ today means something very different to a few decades ago. Once associated with ugly, scrawled obscenities and inner-city blight, the rise of creative, attractive and thoughtful street art has brought it into firmly in the mainstream.
Its influence can be seen across numerous creative disciplines, from album art to advertising, and as part of this renaissance there’s a wealth of themed graffiti fonts to use in your typography projects.
In this post, we've collected together the best free fonts with a graffiti influence, so you can bring some street art style to your project. From spraypaint, splatter and stencil styles to brush lettering, handmade approaches and beyond, we've got it all covered. Enjoy!
01. Hoodson Script
The Hoodson Script comes with extras
With a bouncy baseline and a perfectly paired complimentary marker font, this retro style graffiti font comes with handy bonus swashes. Created by Hendra Dirtyline (Dirtyline Studio), it is free for personal use or $17 for a commercial license.
02. The Graffiti Font
A handmade font, this is graffiti at its finest
This colourful bubble writing packs a vibrant punch. Created by graphic designer Mike Karolos, this font is totally free and although it is only available in a png format (it's not keyable), it does also come in a black and white option.
03. Knight Brush
Knight Brush is adaptable and bold with realistic brush strokes
Inspired by the vintage era, Hendra Pratama created this font with hand-painted signage in mind. This adaptable font is made to resemble real brush strokes and is a bold choice. The free version is a demo for personal use only, and you can download the full commercial option for $15.
04. Fat Wandals
Get your chisel tip on
Fat Wandals, created by Mans Greback, is a free, personal use-only version of his Wandals font family. It's a great-looking script font with lovely flowing strokes that look like they've been done with a chisel-tip marker, and it comes with a full set of characters with loads of variants and all the punctuation you'll need.
05. Don Graffiti
Don Graffiti's nicely urban but still big and friendly
Created by Don Marciano, Don Graffiti is an old-school graffiti font that's ideal for giving any project that extra urban touch. It's an all-caps font that comes as an .OTF file featuring 197 glyphs with variants, numbers and punctuation.
06. Scare Arms
Don't be afraid; you're already dead
Put the frighteners on with this graffiti font from Chequered Ink. It's an all-caps, horror-inspired offering with a scratchy, eroded look to it, making it ideal for drumming up some scares, and it's free for personal use.
07. Grizzly Attack
Get busy with the grizzly
If grizzly bears decided to try their paws at graffiti by scratching directly onto the wall with their claws, then it might look something like this striking script font by Rometheme. It's all-caps, with numerals and a decent selection of extra characters.
08. Crevice Stencil
Crevice Stencil is edgy yet elegant
A stencil font that steers an original path between ornate and edgy, Crevice Stencil is a free font created for the community by Bath design studio Chequered Ink. You can use this font for free in personal projects, but if you want to use it for commercial purposes you’ll need to purchase a licence.
09. Mersey Cowboy
Get messy with Mersey Cowboy
Another font from Chequered Ink, this one’s more closely aligned with the splatter side of graffiti. Mersey Cowboy is a great choice if you want your type to look messy and chaotic, but still very readable. Again, this graffiti font is free for personal use, but you’ll need to shell out for a licence to use it commercially.
10. Nebulous
Nebulous takes a grungy approach to stencil-style typography
Nebulous is a decorative free font that brings a touch of distressed sci-fi chic to the stencil font category. Created by Brazilian designer Pobrenerd, this font is free for both personal and commercial use.
11. Black Top
Black Top provides an artful take on scrawled graffiti
If you’re looking for that artfully scrawled look, then handwritten graffiti style font Black Top could be the answer to your prayers. Brought to you by SixAbove Studios, a creative agency from Connecticut, USA, it includes alternates, ligatures and bonus elements. Note that this font is free for personal use only.
12. Humger
Humger brings a gritty flavour to old-school stencil fonts
Heavily influenced by old-school stencilling, Humger is a gritty, uppercase, narrow textured typeface. It was created by Lebanese designer Wassim Awadallah, who's offering it up for free for use in both personal and commercial projects.
13. Sloppy Paint
Sloppy Paint is fluorescent, fun and downright fabulous
Sloppy Paint looks exactly like it sounds, replete with happy, day-glo colours and fat, cartoony shapes. Created by Japanese game designer Darrell Flood, aka dadiomouse, this graffiti font is free to to download for your personal use, Flood asks that a minimum of $10 be donated for commercial use.
14. Thickedy Grunge
Thickedy Grunge is free only for personal use
Another great font that looks exactly as its name suggests. Another font created by Bath design studio Chequered Ink, it’s free for personal use, but if you want it for a commercial project you’ll need to buy a licence.
15. Fibre
All-caps font fibre is earthy and authentic, yet still easy to read
Fibre is a handwritten, all-caps font with a wild and scratchy feel to it. At the same time, the kerning and font metrics have been designed to provide a clean and easy reading experience, so it's not a case of style over substance. Created by Latvian studio Wild Ones Design, this font is free for personal use in return for your email address.
Next page: 15 more awesome free graffiti fonts
