resources for free commercial use fonts
a collection of places to find free fonts that are suitable for commercial use
as a designer, i'm always up for free resources to help me get a project done or to find that extra element to make the design sing. the right font can most definitely make or break a design, but finding that perfect font can be tricky, especially when the font needs to be used in a commercial project. here's a list of great places i've found to help aid in the search for that perfect font.
fontsquirrel - my favorite site for fonts because it is easy to use and the quality of fonts is quite high. they also have great tools for embedding fonts on webpages using @font-face.
dafont - great site with lots and lots of fonts, but be sure to avoid any that are licensed 'free for personal use'
fontspace - has tons and tons of fonts so you if the others don't have what you need, they just might. be sure to set the filter options to only search for commercial use fonts.
fontex - a smaller site with great quality fonts. the content seems to be growing every time i visit.
the league of movable type - high quality open source fonts. join the revolution!
google search - many designer-type people have curated their own lists of favorite commercial use fonts. this link will get you to a search for 'best commercial use fonts'. there's a whole wealth of fonts available from here that others are advocating for. be sure to check licensing for each font to make sure it is acceptable for commercial use.
if you have other sites that you think should be on this list, please feel free to send me a note.
posted on september 29, 2011
