September 13, 2003
The Best Things in Life are Free
Unothordox, but here are some places where font whores can get their fix:
DigitalDreamDesign is quite a gem with lots of bitmap fonts.
Luc Devroye’s Tiny Archives: His On snot and fonts is the reason he is simultaneously loved and hated by the typographic community.
Free silverware from Fontdiner, a commercial foundry with a distinctive retro style.
Dafont: Freeware heaven
Typoasis has some really good stuff especially stuff from Dieter Steffmann
From C-font, Camellia, and Cream are nice.
Dustbust’s got some nice techno fonts too.
Fontmonster
Iconian Fonts
Fontalicious
TYPO5.COM
Surfstation’s typeset
Some old favourites: Chank, Larabie, Misprinted Type, Fontlover, Superlooper and I recently found Bjork’s vespertine font, which is a little like my flavour of the month.
Tom Coates from plasticbag.org thinks that Fig is “the original vespertine font”.
And I would have loved to include the wonderful dinctype � previously at girlswhowearglasses.com, which later became Snapfonts and later just became ridiculous.
Posted by Karen at September 13, 2003 02:27 PM in typographyCzechoslovakia’s Storm Type generously gives away Lido, possibly the best freeware bodytext font around.
Posted by: Karen at September 27, 2003 04:34 AMHi,
Love your site.
Just wondering what font you use for your strawberry flavor - at the very top where it says ‘snog blog’. I’m sure it says here soemwhere and i’m sure i’ll find it right after i send this - but if you could let me know that would be rad.
thanks.
k.
Posted by: Kristen at October 22, 2003 04:07 AMHi Kristen. Thanks for dropping by. That font is Wendy, which unfortunately is not free.
Posted by: Karen at October 22, 2003 10:12 AMMac Font Vault Not exactly comprehensive but quick to browse.
Posted by: Karen at October 26, 2003 04:53 PMNorak by Atelier Telescopique. Similar to vespertine, but not free and not for sale.
Posted by: Karen at November 5, 2003 11:53 AMTypografski from Germany has six free fonts both Windows and Mac.
via Adriano Santi
Posted by: Karen at January 14, 2004 11:49 AMYou don’t need to understand German to know that there’s some good stuff here to DOWNLOAD and it’s all FREE & GOOD.
Blue Highway is a low-budget / education (read: free) version of Interstate, Lacuna is a more-than-decent sans serif, which even comes with OSF(!!!), Agendia has a nice UC “Q” and FF Interoffice will undoubtedly come in useful sometimes.
Posted by: Karen at February 27, 2004 10:26 AMHi,
Do you know where I can get Vespertine font for mac?
If you are on OSX, you can probably use the true type version from here. If you’re on OS9, then try dafont.
Posted by: Karen at June 23, 2004 07:13 PMThanks Karen!!! Love your site!!
Posted by: Cecilia at June 24, 2004 03:48 AMManic’s Japanese cousin? Maniackers, with lotsa freebies.
Posted by: Karen at July 29, 2004 10:11 AMHi,
I’m trying to find a version of interstate - but for free. I’m struggling! If its not free - does anyone know of a font thats very similar….?
Dave
Posted by: dave at February 2, 2005 12:38 PMSince Interstate is based on a public domain design (the US highway signage) it’s actually possible to find similar fonts for cheap or maybe even free - but be warned: you won’t get nearly the same quality of craft.
hhp
i need to get a hold of a few fonts and if anyone could help i’d love you forever. the vespertine font, the link posted doesn’t work, the toronto subway font, and whatever font wes anderson is using in the royal tennebauns and the life aquatic with steve zissou. they don’t have to be free, i’d just really like to have the original fonts.
Posted by: mike at April 24, 2005 07:50 AMThe vespertine link still works for me. If not, try looking for a font called ito.
Not sure about the Toronto subway font.
The Royal Tenenbaum’s feature Futura extensively.
Not sure about life aquatic. Post a link or something?
thank you karen.
i will post the location of the Toronto Subway font when i find it, sweet font. The Life Aquatic also uses Futura it’s just an outline of it, apparently an homage to old italian films.
One more request to everyone, i’m looking for “Champion Heavyweight” and “Ambroise Black”.
Fonts are a worse addiction than gambling that’s for sure. What a great addiction though.
Posted by: mike at April 29, 2005 12:53 AMI discovered this site thorugh a Google search.I thought I’d help somebody out above. There’s a font similar to Interstate: 1 is Blue Highway 2 (the best) is Expressay Free. Hope I helped
Hey Tyler, I mentioned Blue Highway somewhere above, but thanks for pointing us to Ray Larabie’s Expressway Free. I didn’t know about that one!
Mike: No luck with Champion Heavyweight and Ambroise Black.
Posted by: Karen at May 15, 2005 11:49 PMHey Karen,
Do you happen to know a free wendy font lookalike? I used to have the font but then my Hard drive crashed and I lost atleast 700 fonts, some of them I in fact did pay for. Wendy was one of them. ::sigh:: AHh well, just wondering if you had any insight on a free look-alike :)
Thanks, and great site by the way!
-J
Posted by: J at June 15, 2005 10:14 AMHaven’t come across any Wendy lookalikes. But perhaps you want to try CAC Pinafore. Needs a lot of work to make it look good though.
Posted by: Karen at June 15, 2005 11:28 AMDon’t gotta understand German to know that this means free fonts! Hooray.
Posted by: Karen at June 22, 2005 10:00 PMHi again Karen….
I just wanted to share with you this link I found that has wendy medium font for download for free, click here
They also have a bunch of other fonts free there as well :)
Thanks for the help before and hope this helps you and your readers also.
-J
Posted by: J at July 10, 2005 08:31 PMHi there. Can someone e-mail me the vespertine font? Thanks.
Posted by: ashley at July 12, 2005 08:04 AMI don’t have the font. It just occurred to me that the Bjork links that I’ve posted are dying one by one. But you can still download it here. Quick, before MM Paris makes them take it down too. You can probably also get it from some Bjork forums.
I can’t really compare the two, but from what I recall, ito did not look like a professionally made font. Meaning that some kid probably took the time to trace it, design the other characters, etc… And it wasn’t all that close to what MM Paris did. (I think the lc “p” was different.)
Besides, what MM Paris did was not all that original to begin with. There’s also T.26’s Goodnight and Fig.
What I’m saying is that it’s not outright piracy, nothing that foundries themselves are not doing anyway. And they (the guys who digitised the vespertine font) should not be penalised for it.
J, thanks for sharing, just wanted to point out that Wendy is not a free font. But it’s so heavily pirated now, it probably does not make a difference. It’s a useful link for people who bought the font long ago, but lost it, etc…
Play around with it by all means, but if you do use it though, you should buy it.
Posted by: Karen at July 12, 2005 10:01 AMOh I totally agree, I had bought it long ago but when my HD crashed I lost it :/ and with it - all the info about me buying it too. So I was at a loss…
I do advocate buying the font if you really appreciate fonts and how much work goes into making them. I just couldn’t justify purchasing it again (for $35) when I had before.
Regardign ITO or the Vespertine font- “Bjork fonts” has stripped this Download. Its not there anymore. Anyone have any other resources or would anyone like to send it to me or do a trade? I need TTF or PC usable.
Posted by: Julian at August 8, 2005 09:45 AMhey i really want wendy medium , please can anyone help
Posted by: carlie at August 27, 2005 06:57 AMhey i really want wendy family , please can anyone help
Posted by: ale at October 4, 2005 09:39 PMHi,
I’m trying to find a version of interstate - but for free. I’m struggling! If its not free - does anyone know of a font thats very similar….?
Posted by: Auto at December 25, 2005 09:07 PMTry this… http://www.dafont.com/en/font.php?file=blue_highway it’s similar enough but isn’t as nice, of course.
Posted by: jbarks at December 26, 2005 02:29 PMaaa. my hard drive crashed and i lost my wendy medium and looks like the site that once had it removed it. can somebody direct me to the right place or email it to me at e.kaye@hotmail.com. Pleaaase.
Posted by: Kaye at January 13, 2006 01:52 PMHi everyone. I am looking for some help in finding a free font!
I am looking for Johann Sparkling font…. its so pretty, and I want to use it for one project, and then throw it away.
Does anyone have it or know of a place to get it for free? Or know of a look alike?
THANKS SO MUCH!!!!
Posted by: Maureen at April 8, 2006 07:53 PMI agree that Johann Sparkling is pretty. Sorry I can’t point to where it might be, or I would!
License-free fonts can be found here:
http://www.alvit.de/blog/article/20-best-license-free-official-fonts
Posted by: H at April 28, 2006 09:44 AMFree pixel fonts by Michael Schmidt: http://pixelfonts.style-force.net/
Posted by: vantan at May 5, 2006 09:52 AMHello vantan! Thanks for the link. Randy has posted that link earlier. And we all love it!!!
Posted by: Karen at May 7, 2006 10:22 PMHey! I found a font that is very similar to Wendy Medium, it is called Got that Bling NF and it is very very similar, so for all of you who need wendy this one is great! However I just started my business and I made some cards using Wendy and I really like it, so if anyone can send it to me or tell me where i could find it for free I would appreciate it big time so tnxs if you can help!
HAIL TO THE QUEEN!! AS I HAVE FOUND A PAGE THAT HAS WENDY MEDIUM FREE!!! YES EVERYBODY, YOU READ CORRECTLY!!!
IT IS CALLED WWW.LOCALHERO.COM
HOORAY!!!
WITH LOVE,
MARGE
SORRY! IT’S WWW.LOCALHEROCLOTHING.COM
LOVE,
MARGE
Awesome! Thanks so much, Marge!
Posted by: Andrea at August 8, 2006 10:17 PMI’ve been after wendy medium for ages and now I’ve found it on that site it won’t download properly any help massively appreciated.
thanks
Posted by: frustrated at August 16, 2006 02:23 AMHeres another link to the WendyMed font .tff file
Posted by: Nikki at September 9, 2006 01:37 AMOMG Thank you sooooo much, Nikki!!
Posted by: Narcotic at September 24, 2006 01:17 PMHello,
I’d like to share these free Chinese fonts. Really cool and free too.
Take care :-)
Hi everybody,
I have the same problem as ‘J’. My Hard disk crashed and I lost most of my 650 fonts. No problem for the free fonts. I’ll find them somewhere on the internet. But I’m pretty upset about loosing the fonts I paid for (about 25 fonts!). The one I miss the most is caecilia PMN. I’ve been searching the net to find a lookalike but alas I haven’t found one after lookling through 50 or some pages. Can anybody help me?
Posted by: Mirjam at October 19, 2006 07:30 PMHi Mirjam,
I have a True Type font named Cecilia…is that the same font you are looking for, or was yours actually Caecilia, as you have it spelled in your request?
Thank you, thank you, thank you - you helped me with a vital font issue. :0)
Posted by: Ricky at October 24, 2006 05:31 PMKaren, you might want to check the links posted by others. Some of them are questionable.
Posted by: Tiffany at October 31, 2006 05:35 AM