After three straight days watching nonstop to tons and tons of free fonts, my head is beating as if my heart was inside my skull, and I'm suspecting I've just lost my capacity for pattern recognition. Typography is by no means an art to be taken lightly, too often underestimated by young professionals and amateurs that miss the fact that a simple shift in the kerning can make the whole difference between a cheap amateurish design and a really eye catching professional piece of work. Typography is a true art on its own, full of complexities and nuances. My intention with this series is to give a brief insight about the basics and show you the best resources I've found on the net so you can save time and sanity. There are so many low quality fonts out there, it becomes a titanic entrepreneurship to find the type you want. I feel that most of the time free fonts just encourage you to stop wasting time and just buy the commercial font you need.

Personally, I do not recommend having too many fonts installed because it can distract you from your vision. At first, I thought that I was invincible by having hundreds of fonts, believing it expanded my possibilities endlessly, but the truth was that it made me waste more time browsing and it ended up making me feel always anxious and uncertain of my choices. Having fewer and better fonts brought my designs back to the point giving consistency and strength to my work. Not to mention the time I'm saving.

My own conclusion after browsing through so many, many fonts, is that with a bit of patience and resourcefulness, you can get away with professional work only using free fonts. It's probably not the fastest nor easiest way round, but it is a real possibility. Hope that with my selection I can save you some time and improve somehow your designs.

1. Kontrapunkt

Kontrapunkt

[caption id="attachment_978" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] This font was awarded in 2004 the Danish prize for best typeface design. The kind people of Kontrapunkt have decided to give their beautiful creation to the world for much excitement of the designing crowd. This one is a true classic for font lovers because of its modern and clean feel.

2. Supermarket

Vector.Ize

[caption id="attachment_979" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] I think designers often ignore the potential of small fonts. They're true lifesavers each time you need to insert typography inside icons or flash animations intended for web. Don't expect to print a banner the size of a Christo installation and expect this font to look good. This font is designed especifically for small (8px or less) designs.

3. Supernova

Vector.Ize

[caption id="attachment_980" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] It's very difficult to make distinctive glyphs on such small size. But this guys achieved the impossible here, creating a tiny narrow unique font.

4. Nordica

Superieur Graphique

[caption id="attachment_981" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] French guys have a lot of style. Didn't you watch ratatouille? This is an elegant, symmetric font pleasing enough for titles and also for paragraph text. It has the nice property to "clean" out emotion, giving a neutral feel to any text.

5. Superkarcher

Superieur Graphique

[caption id="attachment_982" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] High quality font. Not so impressive as the other small fonts reviewed, but what I liked very much its isometric (squarish) design that makes it a perfect fit in grids and layouts.

6. Sukplena

EUTYPOCE

[caption id="attachment_983" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] Very friendly font, with beautifully rounded strokes ideal for headers and subtitles. Remember the typography rule of thumb, DO NOT USE more than three typefaces at the same time. There are exceptions though. But they are as rare as a leprechaun.

7. Surrounding

Nick Mclellan

[caption id="attachment_984" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] Simple and efective all terrain font very similar to arial and their cousins.

8. Greyscale Basic

Greyscale

[caption id="attachment_985" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] This is one of my favorites. It has a very professional feel to it, with perfect readability and extra clean look.

9. Audimat

Smeltery

[caption id="attachment_986" align="aligncenter" width="390" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] The ultimate poster font. Gorgeous looking font for aiding almost any kind of design need. Check out their site, because they have a couple of more gems.

10. Paper Johnny

Pheist

[caption id="attachment_987" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] I really don't digg the so called "funny fonts". They are difficult to insert into designs because of their especific feel, and are so overused that it automatically makes your work look like cheap or amateurish. I personally find them very difficult to incorporate because they pull your designs toward their style and not the other way round like it should be. But I like this one, since it doesn't have a too obvious intention and it does have a high quality.

11. Delicious

Jos Buivenga

[caption id="attachment_988" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] You can never use this font too much. Its just perfect.

12. Fontin

Jos Buivenga

[caption id="attachment_989" align="aligncenter" width="416" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] You could write a page full of curses and perversion and it would still look elegant if you use this font.

13. Day Roman

Apostrophe

[caption id="attachment_1011" align="aligncenter" width="436" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_1013" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] Other of my favorites. Great alternative to Garamond. Legant and stylish. Perfect for making very decorative ligatures.

14. Lacuna

Glashouse Design

[caption id="attachment_1015" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] Thin neutral font. Look how it makes Ac-Dc seem decent.

15. Slabtall

Manfred Klein

[caption id="attachment_1016" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] Very similar to the famouse rockwell font. Concise and effective. Rigid serifs well acomplished.

16. A Nightmare Before Christmas

The Tim Burton Collective

[caption id="attachment_993" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] Apart from being based on a Tim Burton film, this font is wonderfully made and its uses are not confined to that particular style. This font turns out to be a elegant and versatile serif, perfect for anything ranging from expressionist to art nouveau.

17. Jaddah

Hashim

[caption id="attachment_994" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] Foreign characters are much, much appreciated, and this set is a real treasure. Building up a font with Arabic characters present many technical challenges since the thinking process of middle east cultures is totally different from occidental workflow, which is the mainframe of all programing languages. These characters are not fixated like in occidental alphabet, they are rather dynamic and context dependent which brings many kerning, leading and proportion issues. The same phonetic expression is not always rendered with the same glyph. All concepts regarding the anatomy of a font that are used for latin glyphs are completely different. Besides that, there are three different calligraphc systems each one with their own guidlines. So how the hell did this guy do this? And for free? I have to thank one of the designers here at Iconshock for giving me insight about foreign alphabets since the guy is a polyglote. A gift that I can't achieve no matter how much I've praticed french kissing in my life. kudos to him and to Hashim the creator behind this fabulous work.

19. Gentium

Victor Gaultney [caption id="attachment_995" align="aligncenter" width="329" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] This is not just a font. This is a project for the sake of humanity. This font is intended to give the posibility for a clear and professional looking typface that embraces all latin characters with both polytonic and monotonic greek, plus cyrillic. A huge achievement indeed. And the fonts are released under an open font licence that allows for modificatoin and redistrubition.

20. 04 Bitmap fonts

04

[caption id="attachment_996" align="aligncenter" width="346" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] Bitmap fonts are ideal for small designs since you can go to sizes under 8px and still look sharp. They are not a match for vector fonts when you go for printing or film and video work, but they are undisputed for icon and small web design.

21. CA Plushy

Stefan Claudius

[caption id="attachment_1017" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] Beatifull stroke font, one of the best I've seen around. Its difficult to find pro looking typfaces of this style, since you can easily deviate from readability.Such is not the case for this font.

22. Dater

Stefanie Koerner

[caption id="attachment_1018" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] Grungy fonts are really overused and aesthetically inconvenient most of the time. Most of them aren't good for reading and to me, it seems silly to use a pre grunged font, when you can custom grunge any font whenever you want. But I do like this one because the grunge effect is rather subtle and the anatomy of the font is original and effective.

23. Traktor

Stefan Claudius

[caption id="attachment_1019" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] Another personal favorite. Clean, super hyper readable and has tons of punch. The perfect alternative for the beloved preinstalled impact font.

24. Linja

Emil Bertell

[caption id="attachment_1020" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] Extra thin stylish font. Very nice descendants and strokes. The design of this font is superb for headers and subtitles, but can be too light for paragraphs.

25. Punavuori

Emil Bertell

[caption id="attachment_1021" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] Bauhaus kind of feel. Not suitable for paragraphs.

26. Typo 3

Typo 3

[caption id="attachment_1022" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] Very well designed and singular despite its simplicity.

27. Tengwar Annatar

Johan Winge

[caption id="attachment_1023" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] This guy is really nuts! Why on earth did he do this??? The entire world community has to repay him someway, I don't now, each one of us let's send him a nickel, so he'll be rich in a month despite ruining the pockets of all his pants. This font is mostly useless for practical purposes, since, well, we all now that elf guy Elron lost the elections, so no more elfish tongues around here. But despite that, this font is truly awesome.

28. Fanda Egyptian

EUTYPOCE

[caption id="attachment_1024" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] How can you make a stylish serif so small? This is the best small font I've seen around, pretty detailed and unique. I find this font one of the most incredible around.

29. Sadoc Wild

José Lobos - Beraka

[caption id="attachment_1025" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption]

When texturing building walls in 3D, I've had many times to make grungy graffiti. I didn't use any fonts at all, and just made the graffiti from scratch. I think this method is necesary for walls or buildings that are going to be prominent in the scene. But there is no need to invest time on creating graffiti on the far off elements when you can generate them with this font. Very usefull and very high quality. Check out the guy's home page, because he has many other styles too.

30. Fertigo

Jos Buivenga

[caption id="attachment_1026" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="Click on Image to Download"][/caption] Beautiful font with auto ligatures and very elegant feel. I'm using this font for a book I'm working on because its one of the best fonts I've seen. It has a wide language support with more than 150 glyphs. Hail Typography!(part 3): Basic Principles Hail Typography!(Part 2): 10 free font resources