23 Fresh Free Fonts for Graphic Designers That You Won't Want to Miss Graphic Design Junction (2024)

FAQs

Where do graphic designers get their fonts? ›

DaFont is a popular website that offers a large collection of free fonts that you can download and use for various design projects. It was launched in 2000 and has since become a go-to resource for graphic designers, artists, and anyone in need of unique and high-quality typography.

The person who created it might have cut corners with kerning or has left out multi language characters. Some fonts could be rip-offs from licensed fonts with the copyright notices removed. You could end up using a font illegally without the correct licensing rights.

Free font downloads may carry viruses.

For example, free fonts may not be coded to the correct Unicode standards, which can cause problems later in the workflow.

Limit yourself to three fonts. This is an important graphic design rule to follow. If you are incorporating text in your designs, you should not use more than three different fonts. Using too many fonts is frankly ugly and chaotic.

While there are many resources that offer free fonts to use for graphic design, if a font requires payment to use, then you should absolutely pay for it. Pirating or using a font without the proper license could land you in legal trouble and cost you more in the end rather than if you just paid for it.

Helvetica

Helvetica, it's safe to presume, is the most popular and widely used font in the world.

Recommended serif fonts include Cambria, Georgia, and Times New Roman. Sans serif fonts don't have small strokes attached to their letters, giving them a cleaner and more modern style. Some recommended sans serif fonts include Arial, Calibri, and Verdana.

All Fontshare fonts, whether they are Closed or Open Source, are free fonts of the highest standard. Although Fontshare fonts are 100% free and can be used in any media, at any scale, at any location worldwide, we'd still recommend you to go through their licenses carefully.

What is the best site for free fonts? ›

Google Fonts (free)

Google Fonts is one of the best free font websites and a go-to resource for many designers. In addition to letting you explore font families and test various typefaces in more than 135 languages, the platform offers access to hundreds of fonts, all of which are free to download.

Sometimes, but not always. Although many free fonts allow unrestricted use (including use for commercial projects and as logotype fonts), “free” fonts can sometimes be commercial fonts that are illegally copied.

With a few exceptions, many free fonts are only for personal use. That means you can download them and use them to test out the look of your book, but if you want to sell commercially, you will need to buy the license to that font.

Readability on small screens: Serif fonts can be harder to read on small screens like smartphones or tablets, especially when the text is set in small sizes. Informal tone: Serif fonts may convey a more traditional or formal tone, which may not be appropriate for certain projects or audiences.

Graphic design is all about visual communication. While graphic designers do not typically create their own letterforms, we do employ combinations of existing typefaces and fonts to create our designs.

A thorough grasp of what each project entails allows designers to better understand which typeface will best suit those needs. Once the scope of the project has been defined, the other considerations—such as mood, versatility, message, and brand—can guide designers toward the best font choices.

One popular source of images for graphic designers is stock photo websites. These platforms offer extensive libraries of professionally shot photographs, illustrations, and vector graphics that can be licensed for use in design projects.

Geometric sans serifs are very popular when it comes to the primary font choice and are used by 70% of the brands we looked at. Futura and Proxima Nova are the most popular compared with Gotham in the beauty sector.