5 Websites to download free fonts

If you were a kid about two decades ago, you would have experienced creating those fancy greeting cards in Print Shop Deluxe. Feeling like a true artist, you would tinker with colors, clip arts, and fonts.

And just when you’re ready to print it out, your printer chooses to not cooperate. It wouldn’t work! So, you would save your masterpieces on a floppy disk, trot over to your friend’s place hope their printer works.

So you hand them your floppy disk and ask them to please print the very beautiful card you took so much time working on. You can still picture it in your mind, how the unique, cursive font makes it all very dainty. But when your friend hands you the printout, you are shocked!

The once swirly words on the card had turned into boring squares. You attempted a re-print, but the result was the same. That’s when it hit – their computer was missing the fonts you had used. Instead of a printed-out card, you ended up with a handmade one.

Two decades ago, cards straight out of a home printer were more special than handwritten letters.

Times have changed since then, but the value of well-chosen fonts remains the same. It’s just that now, you have more choices, and the process of using free fonts comes with much more ease.

So, how do you pick the perfect fonts for your brand?

Here’s a nifty guide on choosing top-notch fonts for your business and website.

Reflect your brand in your fonts

If you still don’t have a go-to font for your brand, begin by thinking of how you want your materials to look.

The options are endless, so start with this: Choose between a serif and a sans-serif font. A serif font has a slight projection finishing off a stroke of a letter. Think Times New Roman. On the other hand, a sans-serif font doesn’t have such a style. The letters do not have decorative lines or tails. Think Arial.

Some brands combine these two font styles and use them interchangeably in their headings and bodies of text. You can also stick to one type of font, depending on your brand.

For instance, a brand that caters to the academe might be better off using serif fonts, and one that sells toys will be able to reflect their brand well with sans serif fonts.

This is only the first step, as you would then have to choose the specific font to use across your materials. As a rule of thumb, make sure that you choose fonts that are clear and readable across all devices – laptops, tablets, print, and phones.

Remember, fonts, be they custom, CSS, open type, graphic design, or designer fonts, carry characteristics. They give your clients a vibe of your concept or brand even before they soak in the copy.

Why should you download free fonts?

Because they’re free, duh? But also, free fonts make it easy for your collaborators to access the font. Because they are easily available on websites like Dafont, Fontspace, and 1001 font, you won’t have a hard time if someone in your team needs it to create say, a social media post.

Having a paid font would mean your designers, developers, and advertisers would need a copy from you every time. To skip this hassle, opt for free font downloads from sites like Dafonts.

Here’s your go-to list of free fonts sources:

Google Fonts

With a whopping selection of over 1,300 web-friendly online fonts and a nifty font preview option, Google Fonts is a game-changer.

FontBundles

Need a set of fonts that go hand in hand? Font Bundles is worth a peek. They feature one premium font in their free list every week. Bookmark it the next time you find yourself stuck in your limited font choices.

Font Squirrel

Font Squirrel is more of a font directory. It rounds up fonts free from other sites and links out to them. The catch – no preview functionality. So, you’ll have to check each one out, which could be a bit of a drag. Then again, this will prove useful if you already know the names of the fonts that you use.

Dafont

One of the earliest and most trustworthy sites for font downloads. Dafont, also known as da font or dfont, boasts over 60,000 typefaces.

Font Space

Font Space lists over 75,000 fonts, but not all are free. To sieve out free fonts for commercial use, simply type “free fonts” in the font download search bar. A great functionality is that you can see an example of the font in an actual design. Nifty!

You are wasting time if people can’t read any of your messaging because the font is so fancy-schmancy. Nobody has the time to figure it out. So it’s best if you make reading easy for them.

Now that you’ve chosen a specific font, I’ll give a few tips on where to get them and why you need to get them for free.

How to install a downloaded font

Installing downloadable fonts is more or less the same across different operating systems. Font files usually come as .zip documents for freeware font downloads.

1. Unzip and extract the font files.

2. Move the fonts to your system’s font folder.

3. Give your applications a quick refresh or restart to include the new fonts.

And voila! You’re done.

Remember to store the free fonts you download in a folder that’s easy to access. It’s also a good idea to update your Brand Guidelines to include the new fonts to keep everyone on the same page.

Fonts are a powerful ingredient in your designs. You can send a stronger message, evoke certain emotions, and represent a brand well through fonts. Choose fonts that are easy to read, beautiful to look at, and distinctly yours.

Your best bet is to work with a pro design team that can recommend the best font and font combinations to use for your brand.