Picking the perfect font can make or break a project, but often high-quality typefaces can come with a hefty price tag – that's where the best free fonts come in. From classy serifs to bold sans serif designs, each font has a unique style that can bring a handy boost to your projects and thankfully with so many available, there's likely a free font perfect for your needs.
Below we've compiled 30 of the best free fonts to fit a variety of projects. Before you get stuck in make sure you check the font licensing details as some may only be free for personal use (check out our font licensing guide if you need a refresh). If you're after more options take a look at the best places to download free fonts.
The best free serif fonts
01. Giveny
Givenchy takes inspiration from traditional serif styles, but gives them a stylish feel (Image credit: Craft Supply Co.)
Described as a "fusion of pure geometry and optical balance", and taking inspiration from traditional serif styles, this stylish font nonetheless has a contemporary feel. It adds touch of everything from posters and invitations to logos and personal blogs.
This minimalistic, ligature style font is perfect for giving your designs that rustic yet elevated look. Beautifully detailed and ornate, Carena would be a good choice for projects that require a more delicate feel, such as for wedding invitations, editorials and personal projects.
03. Harmony
Harmony is easy to read and professional looking (Image credit: Nevsky Type Design)
Free for personal use (commercial licences available from $14)
Harmony is available for download from Behance. This is a stylish modern font that features some gorgeous shapes that make it perfect for a more elegant touch. It is easy to read and professional looking, making it a great option for those looking for a bold statement.
04. Editorial New
Editorial New has a retro 90s editorial look (Image credit: Pangram Pangram®)
Free for personal use (commercial licences available from $30)
Designed by Mathieu Desjardins, Editorial New is a precise narrow serif designed for long-form copy but with enough personality to be used for titles too. It exudes a 1990s editorial feel, but still comes across as rich and contemporary. It comes in seven weights, from ultralight to heavy.
05. Alegreya
Alegreya is one of the best fonts for long text passages (Image credit: Juan Pablo del Peral)
Crafted by Juan Pablo del Peral expressly for the purposes of book design, this award-winning serif font eminently readable, with a rhythm to it that facilitates the absorption of long texts, and we love it for its fresh, approachable take on a calligraphic style.
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06. Restora
Restora is one of the best free fonts for bringing your editorial designs to life (Image credit: Nasir Udin)
Designed by Nasir Udin, Restora is a combination of bright, friendly letterforms with an embellishment that feels classic. In its free version it also includes Restora Extra Light and Restora Thin Italic, giving you a good deal of versatility for general editorial text, a book cover or just a simple bit of branding.
07. Free Saint George Stencil Font
Free fonts needn’t be boring! Check out this fun and playful serif based on Georgia (Image credit: Vedran Vaskovic)
Fans of the classic font Georgia will appreciate this experimental tribute by Vedran Vaskovic. It's made up of a collection of cheeky, playful stencil shapes that are perfect for adding a little flair to your designs. Apparently, it's inspired by the Christian legend of Saint George the dragon-slayer.
08. Colus
Colus is one of the best free fonts for headlines (Image credit: Stan Partalev on Font Fabric)
With an imposing, classical feel, Colus is great for when you want your designs to feel a little more sombre. It's inspired by carved letter inscriptions in wood and stone, and as such, it hearkens back to the classical ages. An excellent choice of free font for making posters that have a little more sophistication to them.
09. Grenze
Grenze blends Roman and blackletter styles (Image credit: Omnibus Type)
Grenze by Renata Polastri and Omnibus-Type blends Roman and blackletter styles. With nine weights and italics, it offers a lovely balance between visual impact and readability, making it suitable for magazines and other print projects, Grenze is available under the SIL Open Font License for unrestricted use.
10. Amagro
If you're looking for all-caps serifs, check out Amagro (Image credit: Fabio Servolo)
For making a big impact (no pun intended), check out this all-caps serif typeface from Fabio Servolo. Amagro consists of strong, angular serifs that are especially good for making imposing headlines, but it's also got some nice touches like a stylish ampersand, and easy-to-read numerals.
The best free sans-serif fonts
11. Newake
As versatile as it is beautiful, Newake knocks other free fonts for six (Image credit: Roberto Perrino and Francesco Terragin)
Combining both humanist and geometric elements, Newake is a versatile sans serif that has slightly rounded corners that provide an elegant line to text designs. Created by the Indieground team, Newake is perfect for creating standout titles, logos, editorial, packaging and web design.
12. Obrazec
Obrazec is one of the boldest, most confident free fonts around (Image credit: Ilya Zakharov)
Obrazec is an uncompromising, industrial-style sans serif created by Ilya Zakharov. This sturdy and confident typeface is one of the best free fonts for adding strength and personality to your branding projects, whether you're working on logo design, promotional materials, or advertising.
13. Archive Grotesk
Free Archive Grotesk is one of the best free fonts for invitations, calendars and other stationery (Image credit: Tomas Clarkson)
Created by Tomas Clarkson, Free Archive Grotesk is a clean and minimalist sans that features uppercase, lowercase and numerals. It’s one of those free fonts that would work well in everything from headlines and magazine page furniture to invitations, calendars, postcards and fashion designs
14. Animosa
Animosa is clean, modern and eye catching (Image credit: Stefano Giliberti)
Animosa is a clean modern sans-serif that comes with a wide range of unique characters. from Created by Stefano Giliberti, this font is available in five weights and includes 93 languages and 508 glyphs. It's one of the best fonts we’ve seen for drawing the reader’s eye to the page, and keeping it there.
15. Public Sans
A sensible sans for serious projects (Image credit: Public Sans)
Geometric sans serif typeface Alcubierre is the work of designer Matt Ellis. Following in the footsteps of his original free font Ikaros, this clean, minimal typeface works for a variety of uses.
16. Chivo
Chivo is one of the most eye-catching free fonts around (Image credit: Omnibus Type) (Image credit: Omnibus-Type)
Chivo is a grotesque typeface that’s ideal for headlines, and other page furniture where you want to grab attention. Both confident and elegant, it’s been released in four weights with matching italics. This free font is the work of Héctor Gatti and the Omnibus-Type Team.
17. Comfortaa
Free font Comfortaa could work well in a logo design (Image credit: Google Fonts) (Image credit: Johan Aakerlund)
Comfortaa is a rounded geometric sans-serif type design intended for large sizes. Created by Johan Aakerlund, a design engineer at the Technical University of Denmark, it’s a simple, good looking font that includes large number of different characters and symbols.
18. HK Grotesk
HK Grotesk is one of our favourite free fonts for casting small text (Image credit: Hanken Design Co)
HK Grotesk is a sans-serif typeface inspired by the classic grotesques, such as Akzidenz Grotesk, Univers, Trade Gothic and Gill Sans. It was designed by Hanken Design Co with the aim of creating a friendly and distinguishable font that’s suitable for small text.
19. Clear Sans
Who knew Intel did free fonts? (Image credit: Intel) (Image credit: Intel)
Clear Sans is a versatile font designed by Intel designed with on-screen legibility in mind. Suitable for screen, print, and web, this free font is notable for its minimised characters and slightly narrow proportions, making it a great choice for UI design, from short labels to long passages.
20. Source Sans Pro
Adobe’s first foray into open source type, Source Sans Pro is one of the design community’s most popular free fonts (Image credit: Adobe) (Image credit: Adobe)
Released in 2012, Source Sans Pro was the first open source type family for Adobe. It was envisioned as a classic grotesque typeface with a simple, unassuming design, intended to work well in user interfaces. A solid, reliable font that's easy to read, this would be a good choice for user interfaces.
Unusual fonts
21. Aquiver
Adding a bit of edge with this hand-drawn sans serif (Image credit: Jessica Solomon)
Aquiver is an effortlessly cool contemporary font that's perfect for adding a bit of edge to your projects. The hand-drawn sans serif created by Jessica Solomon is perfect for posters and bold creative projects that require a big impact that stands out from the crowd.
22. Misto Font
Misto font was inspired by postmodernist architecture in Ukraine. (Image credit: Katerina Korolevtseva)
Designed by Katerina Korolevtseva, Misto font is a tribute to her hometown of Slavutych in Ukraine. It features sharp contrasts in stroke width, which are inspired by the town’s postmodernist architecture and utopian ideals. This is a multilingual display sans serif, which supports both Latin and Cyrillic.
This futuristic font created by Type Colony designers Aliv Pandu and Hasto Nugroho is inspired by cyberpunk and vaporwave aesthetics. Perfect for posters, art projects and personal websites, this contemporary font adds a striking contemporary flair to bold titles and punchy copy.
24. Miratrix
Miratrix is one of the most original free fonts available today (Image credit: Andrey Karter)
Strongly influenced by Brutalism, Miratrix is a geometric grotesque that’s very far from standard and boring; in fact, it’s one of the most original free fonts we’ve seen in ages. Designed by Andrey Karter, this eye-catching multi-functional font is intended for use in a variety of projects, including web design, logos, brand identity, packaging, posters and headlines.
25. Soulcraft
Looking for free fonts that work as variable fonts too? Check out Soulcraft (Image credit: Massimo Studio)
Soulcraft typeface is a free variable font designed to emulate vernacular lettering. Its creators at Massimo Studio intend creative people to make use in varied ways, so they can “express themselves in a bold, raw and unafraid voice”.
26. Stanley
Stanley exudes elegance (Image credit: Jérémie Gauthier)
For a truly stylish font, download Stanley. Created by Jérémie Gauthier, this font combines rounded and more geometric forms and the results are striking. In our view, Stanley would work well for luxury branding or packaging.
27. Gilbert
Gilbert is named after the designer of the rainbow flag (Image credit: Type with Pride) (Image credit: Adobe)
Gilbert Baker, who died in 2017, was a LGBTQ activist and artist who's best known for creating the iconic rainbow flag, and he's been commemorated by this striking free display font. A good option for headlines and banner slogans.
28. Le Super Serif
Le Super Serif is one of the few experimental free fonts that actually works (Image credit: Thijs Janssen) (Image credit: Studio SuperBruut)
Le Super Serif is that rare thing: a typographical experiment that actually works. It’s described by its creator, Dutch designer Thijs Janssen, as “a fashionable uppercase typeface with a little modern Western flavour to it”.
29. Borsok
Borsok is characterised by attention-grabbing, rounded shapes (Image credit: Dastan Miraj)
Borsok is a bold but smooth display font with multilingual support. Its attention-grabbing, rounded shapes makes it perfect for branding, apparel design, product packaging, stylish text, quotes, greeting cards, posters and much more. It includes uppercase & lowercase characters, numerals, punctuation and symbols.
30. Blackest
(Image credit: Francesco Canovaro/Andrea Tartarelli)
Blackest is a modern inverse contrast wedge serif typeface family based on the Blacker typeface designed by Cosimo Lorenzo Pancini. Designed by Francesco Canovaro and Andrea Tartarelli, the quirky typeface maintains the class of the original design, updating it with more contrast and visual dynamism.
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Tom May is an award-winning journalist and editor specialising in design, photography and technology. Author of the Amazon #1 bestseller Great TED Talks: Creativity, published by Pavilion Books, Tom was previously editor of Professional Photography magazine, associate editor at Creative Bloq, and deputy editor at net magazine. Today, he is a regular contributor to Creative Bloq and its sister sites Digital Camera World, T3.com and Tech Radar. He also writes for Creative Boom and works on content marketing projects.
