Who is Giving Away All These Free Fonts... and Why?
Type designers, foundries, and distributors like to make money. They do this by selling quality fonts (typefaces) for our use. So why are there so many free fonts available on the Web?
Are they any good?
A lot of businesses give away products in order to get you in their store or to entice you to try their product. You've probably gotten soap and deodorant samples in the mail. Has your Avon salesperson offered you little packets of cleanser or trial size product samples? Grocery stores leave samples of meats and cheeses on the counter for customers to taste. These free products are simply one way of getting you to try a product - hoping that you'll like it enough to pay for it next time.
Type designers and foundries do this too. They offer you free fonts as a way to get you to sample the quality of their type. The goal, like any store, is to have you come back for more - with your money.
Although this sites offers up a whole alphabet of free fonts found on the Web, please don't lose sight of the fact that these products are a tiny sampling of what the designers and foundries have available. When you visit one of the sites linked from here don't just grab your free font and run. Look around. Visit their galleries of shareware or commercial typefaces. Look at the way they use type on their pages - some are quite interesting and educational.
Bookmark your favorite sites and patronize the designers and foundries. Check their collections and purchase some of their many wonderful typefaces for your next project. Free fonts are fun but unless designers see results (sales) they may stop offering so many great freebies.
Get fancy with your fonts
Once you have 'em, what will you do with them? You'll find that the vast majority of the free fonts available on the Web are display or decorative typefaces. Grunge fonts are popular too. In most cases they won't make great reading for your newsletter but used in moderation, you can make a statement with these typefaces.
Initial Caps draw attention to the accompanying text by their size. It is also a great place to try out those typefaces that don't cut it as regular text. Beyond drop caps, enlarge a single character in a headline to make a statement. This works well with punctuation such as exclamation points and question marks.
Use dingbat characters as clipart or as Web graphics. Dingbats fonts are like miniature clipart collections. Fun, fanciful, and useful. Dressed up with a shadow and a colorful fill, this "house" could point to "home" on a Web page.
A Free Font for Every Day of the Year!
Although they are free, some restrictions may apply. Read any licensing agreements or "readme" files carefully. Not all sites carry their free fonts in Mac formats - PC is most common. The majority of free fonts are in ZIP archives.
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