Top 5 Sites for Free Fonts

by Kelsey Arrington on Apr 01, 2022

If you are a design professional of any kind; you may be on the hunt for interesting fonts to use in creative projects. We get it – when it comes to designing captivating visual assets, you can never have too many typefaces or font families at your disposal. However, finding free fonts for designers can be a bit of a challenge.

But, there’s good news! In this post, we’ve curated a list of the top 5 sites to find free fonts in 2022 So, keep scrolling. Below, you’ll find reliable type foundries whose fonts you can use for graphic design projects, website headers, packaging designs, poster designs, and more!

In this post:

1. What is a typeface?
2. What is a font?
3. What is a font family?
4. 5 Sites to Find Open-Source Fonts

What is a typeface?

While often used interchangeably, the terms typeface and font don’t exactly mean the same thing. A typeface is defined as a set of design features for letters, numbers, and other characters (i.e. serif, script, etc)

Common types of typefaces include:

• Serif Typefaces
• Sans Serif Typefaces
• Decorative Typefaces
• Script Typefaces

What is a font?

A font can be defined as any variation of a typeface. For example, when a typeface is roman, bold, italicized, or condensed; you are working with a font.

What is a font family?

Much like the name implies, a font family is a group of related fonts. Take the popular typeface Helvetica Neue for instance. That typeface has many fonts that vary. Helvetica Neue can be bold, italic, or ultra light and it can be used in size 12pt or 18pt font. The collection of all of Helvetic Neue’s varying fonts makes up its font family.

5 Sites to Find Open-Source Fonts

1. Google Fonts
2. Velvetyne Type Foundry
3. Open Foundry
4. The League of Moveable Type
5. Colletttivo

Google Fonts

Need fonts for your print design project? Or are you creating logos? Whatever the case may be, you have a good chance of finding a great font on Google Fonts – a library that has over 1,350 open-source font families and APIs that can be used with CSS or Android. Want to know something even more exciting? Google Fonts also gives designers the ability to test fonts in 135 different languages!

Velvetyne Type Foundry

Founded in 2010 by Frank Adebiaye, Velvetyne Type Foundry (VTF) was created with the sole purpose of designing and distributing free and open source typefaces. According to their website, “…making type design more open and transparent increases the dynamism of contemporary creation.”

Open Foundry

If you’re looking for a free platform for curated open-source typefaces; look no further than Open Foundry. Since its launch, Open Foundry has sought to empower designers to work collaboratively and experiment with typography.

The League of Moveable Type

The League of Moveable Type is an open-source type foundry that was created by web designers in 2009. It is recognized as one of the first open-source typography libraries available to designers that work on the web.

In their manifesto, the League lists three core reasons why they believe open-source fonts are good for the design community. Those reasons are as follows:

• Open-source fonts empower designers to create new fonts because they encourage experimentation.
• Open-source fonts give designers the ability to create without licensing restrictions.
• Open-source fonts are great for educational purposes because they provide a no-cost resource for school teachers and college professors that discuss design in their classrooms.

Collletttivo

Collletttivo is a design collective based in Italy that works on various type-based projects and releases open source typefaces from time to time. The goal of this collective is to encourage collaboration and contribute to the design community as a whole.