current obsessions by Grace Bonney 54

current obsession: my favorite fonts!


It wouldn’t be a font-themed day if we didn’t start with a few of my favorites. I use a wide variety of fonts at Design*Sponge for roundups, city guide headers and all types of posts. I tend to prefer contrasting feminine and modern styles, but I have a soft spot for fonts that catch me by surprise and make me look for an excuse to use them. To kick things off this morning, I’m rounding up 35 of my favorite fonts on the market, free and for purchase. I’ve tried to keep as many of these low priced (or no-priced) as possible so that those of you looking to test out new fonts on your blogs or websites don’t have to break the bank. Also, if you’re as much of a font nut as I am, check out this quiz at Pentagram that tells you what font you would be. Have fun! xo, grace

*Please note: Veer.com is the sponsor of today’s upcoming contest but did not receive special consideration for this roundup, nor were we paid for any listings in this post.

Image above: “Strangelove” by Umbrella Type, $12-18


Image above, top to bottom: “Bead Chain,” free for personal use; “Sailor Larry Font” by Tioem, free for personal use; “Craig” by Jasper, free for personal use; “P22 Bifur Font” by Richard Kegler, $19.95; “Twigglee” by Robert Schenk, $14.95; “Coney Island,” free for personal use; “Marquee,” free for personal use; “Romantiques” by Dieter Steffman, free for personal use; “Beamie,” free for personal use; “Mexcellent,” free for personal use


Image above: All fonts from “Wild West Press” by Walden Fonts. Collection of fonts for $49.95


Image above, top to bottom: “Lowvetica” by Mario Arturo, donation required; “Gemini Italic,” $19.95; “Messner” by Juraj Chrastina, $29; “Arwen,” free for personal use; “Seattle Sans,” free for personal use; “Farouk,” free for personal use; “Market Deco,” free for personal use

CLICK HERE for more fonts after the jump!


Image above: “Penabico” by Intellecta Design, $8.93


Image above: “Breathe” by Maximiliano Sproviero, $20


Image above, clockwise from top left: “Darjeeling Complete” by Facetype, $30; “Strong Leaf” by Lisna Lee, free for personal use (love this font!); “Lullaby” by Sander Legrand, free for personal use; “English Essay” by Brittney Murphy, free for personal use


Image above: “Numbers” by Hoefler & Frere-Jones, $169


Image above: “Lavina 4F” by Sergiy Tkachenko, $25


Image above: “Archer” by Hoefler & Frere-Jones, $149 and up

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54 Comments

Emma

“English Essay” is lovely! I kind of want to design a new look for my blog completely around it. I won’t, though… my time could probably be better spent doing other things. :)

Anna

I hate to be a stickler but these are typefaces, not fonts. Sure, the files you download and use are fonts but the Pentagram quiz tells you what typeface you should be, not what font.

This might help:
http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/theyre-not-fonts

Great round up though, Archer is one of my all time favorites!

grace

anna

if you like archer, stay tuned for an interview with jesse ragan, who was part of the design team who created archer :)

grace

quintessence

Clearly we have similar taste!! Recently used the Walden Wild West fonts in a project and I also posted about the Pentagram quiz – what type were you?!

Merry

Nice selection… funny how you can look through these sites time and again and not notice a nice font until someone else uses it!

Allison

fontgasm! as soon as I get my new laptop with scads and scads of memory for new fonts, I’m going to wreak some downloading havoc on this post…

Liz

These are great. So strange — (speaking as a native) the Seattle Sans looks like Seattle to me! It’s perfect.

Paulina J!

I’m obsessed with fonts or typefaces, whatever you want to call them. I’ve downloaded a few from dafont.com. Great post!

Lauren

I fell in love with archer shortly after MSN started using it… I found a similar font through dafont.com (FREE) : Alexandria. Happy font/typeface day!

Claudia

I have been a huge Archer fan since it was first released and that Pentagram quiz nailed it! Apparently, I am Archer Hairline. Great round up, Grace! A lot of these are in my typeface collection as well.

Kate

i love that you’ve selected some nicely crafted, affordable typefaces! that takes a good eye and a lot of digging. i like to see that there are some great options for those of us find it hard to shell out the dough for a hoefler frere jones font.

Jenny

I am a stickler, like Anna, sorry. I also love anything Hoefler & Frere-Jones. I’m generally against the freebie fonts and one-offs because they lack the versatility most designers need. However, sometimes you find that diamond in the rough. Thanks for sharing.

Sharon

Home sick today but Font Day is saving me from thinking about my misery! I’ve spent the last half-hour on dafont.com

Maria Valdivieso-Pakozdi

These are soo beautiful Thanks so much Grace!

Also are you planning to come to Toronto for your Book Tour. I am so excited for the release and would love love love to meet you!

grace

sara

after talking with archer’s designer i can guarantee you it’s worth the price. the amount of work that went into that font is mind-boggling ;)

g

abby

Thanks for sharing these! I’m always looking for more font inspiration. And yeah, Archer is pretty fantastic.

melody

LOVE this round up!!! i just downloaded like 15 new fonts! i’m excited to put some to use with our christmas cards… :)

Bobbi

I could sit and look at fonts for ages. I often wonder about what goes into creating a font; it would take a lot of patience and focus, neither of which I have very much of!

Kristin

This may be a silly question, but when I try to use the English Essay font in my word processor, it cuts off the bottoms of letters (like g and y) which extend below the baseline. It does this to the tops too, but not as much. Is there a way to fix this? And thanks for all the recommendations!

grace

kristen

i’m afraid i don’t know- but dafont usually provides a website for the designer so you could email them to ask about that.

grace

Bonnie!

Kristin, you might try adjusting your line spacing (the amount of space between the lines). It sounds like it is less than your font size. Usually for a 12 font size, for example, the line spacing will be at least 12. If it is less, the tops and bottoms of letters will get cut off.

Peter

Typeface is the nomenclature which should be exalted. I set type not font.

Debra

Love it all. No doubt this is all right up my alley. Now to take some more time and leisurely stroll through this post. Thanks so much!!

Ann

oooh what a great roundup! gorgeous fonts, am off to download some of them! thanks for sharing!

Cate Holst

Fabulous collection! I love the Wild West Press, actually they’re all great. I’ll definitely want to download some of these

Vivien @ The Eclectic Life

strange love is one of my absolute favorites! i’m using the font for my business cards to Alt Summit. That and “Champagne and Limousines.” I guess if you put the two together you could say “There’s STRANGELOVE when you have too much CHAMPAGNE AND LIMOSINES!”

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