Question: What is the Best Place to Buy Fonts for Desktop Publishing?
Readers chose fonts.com in the 2011 About.com Readers' Choice Awards.
Answer: A lot of places sell fonts but three sites come up again and again in recommendations by readers.
About.com Readers' Choice Winners and Finalists
- fonts.com by Monotype Imaging (2010 and 2011 Winner)
- MyFonts.com by Bitstream
- FontShop
About.com Desktop Publishing Guide Choice
I can't recommend one over another. They are all good but here are some thoughts on each site and what it offers.- In addition to selling fonts, fonts.com (and their partner foundries) offer up a selection of quality free fonts. Register (for free) to get to the downloads. There are many articles, newsletters, and Q&A content for learning about fonts and typography. Even if you're not in the market for new fonts, you'll gain a lot of insight into how to use the fonts you already own.
- At MyFonts you can search for fonts by name, by designer, or by foundry, browse by category, check out the Hot New Fonts, and use what may be their best known feature: WhatTheFont for font identification. (See Identifying Fonts Using WhatTheFont and using WhatTheFont for iPhone.
- At FontShop you can, of course, buy fonts. They are organized by category, foundry, designer, and Random for those days when you just want to make great accidental discoveries. The Education section offers up several downloadable (and free) PDFs on fonts and typography with great previews so you can see right away if it's something you want to dig into.
