The best places to download free fonts | Creative Bloq

You can download free fonts from many different sites online, and free fonts can really help you out if you’re on a tight budget, but it helps to know the best places to start looking for the best chance to find the right font fast. It’s easy to end up spending hours searching through font libraries – but we’ve been there, and we’ve made a selection of the best places to download free fonts to save you the job.

As well as the most obvious sources to turn to in order to download fonts for free, we’ve found some lesser-known sites too, including individual design portfolios. Just make sure you always check the licence conditions of any free font you download – many of the sites have different licences for different fonts, and while some are free for all uses, others are free for non-commercial use only. 

If you’re looking for suggestions of exactly what free fonts to download, see our pick of the best free fonts, or for an edgier look, see our pick of 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 go straight to MyFonts, or scroll down for more of the best places to download free fonts.

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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.

The best places to download free fonts

01. FontSpace

Clear labels help you see what’s free and what isn’t so you can download free fronts from FontSpace.

(Image credit: FontSpace)

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With over 100,000 fonts available in TrueType and OpenType flavours, FontSpace (opens in new tab) 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.

02. FontM

FontM leads on free fonts but also has some great premium font offerings

(Image credit: FontM)

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It doesn’t have the biggest collection around, but FontM (opens in new tab)’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 (opens in new tab) 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.

04. DaFont

DaFont has a massive archive of free fonts to search – including novelty fonts like this.

DaFont (opens in new tab) 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 (opens in new tab) makes it quick and easy for everyone to use web fonts on its site. All of the fonts are open source, so you’re free to share and customise them for your own use, or collaborate with the original designer to improve them. And you can use them in every way you want, privately or commercially: in print, on your computer, or in your websites.

06. Creative Market

Get new free goodies each week on Creative Market

(Image credit: Creative Market)

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An online marketplace for community-generated design assets, Creative Market (opens in new tab) 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.

07. Fontasy

There are more than 1,00 free fonts to download on this pun-tastic site

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Fontasy (opens in new tab) 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. 

08. FontStruct

Find free user-generated fonts at FontStruct.

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FontStruct (opens in new tab) 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 (opens in new tab).

09. 1001 Free Fonts

1001 Free Fonts is a site that likes to under-promise and over-deliver

Misnomer alert! 1001 Free Fonts (opens in new tab) 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.

10. Abstract fonts

It’s easy to preview free fonts with Abstract Fonts.

Abstract Fonts (opens in new tab) 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.

11. Neogrey

Be sure to check out these vibrant fonts to download.

(Image credit: Ivan Filipov)

Neogrey (opens in new tab) 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.

12. Glukfonts

Polish designer Gluksza offers some great free design resources.

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Glukfonts (opens in new tab) 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.

13. Fontfabric

Check out the freebie section at independent type foundry Fontfabric.

(Image credit: Font Fabric)

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This is another alternative option for downloading free fonts. An independent type foundry launched by Bulgarian designer Svetoslav Simov, Fontfabric (opens in new tab) includes a lot of paid fonts but its freebie section is a great place to find some unique freebies.

14. Lost Type

Lost Type offers you the chance to pay whatever you like.

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Founded by Riley Cran and Tyler Galpin, Lost Type (opens in new tab) 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.

15. Font Squirrel

Font Squirrel’s freebies are suitable for commercial projects.

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Want to download free fonts for commercial use? Then Font Squirrel (opens in new tab) 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.

16. The League of Movable Type

The League of Movable Type is the first free and open-source type foundry.

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GitHub project The League of Movable Type (opens in new tab) 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.

17. Behance

You’ll need to hunt them out, but there are plenty of free fonts to download on Behance.

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Behance (opens in new tab) 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.

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