Welcome to Typogram’s FontDiscovery newsletter, written by your resident font and design nerd, Hua. Each issue is full of visual examples, and the best view is on the browser here. You can also read it on our blog.

Hi there, 👋

Thanks so much for being here. I hope this week has been good so far. Last week I spent most of the week planning; However, I still fell behind with some work this week. I am catching up, though 💪!

Every fifth issue of this newsletter is called asterisk. In asterisk issues, we do a quick summary of recently featured fonts, plus one of the following: discuss style trends, share additional resources, interview guests, or answer your questions. If you have any questions or suggestions, reply directly to this email, and I am all ears. Also, if you have made anything with the fonts we have profiled, please share it with me. I would be delighted to feature your design work in the next issue of asterisk ~ :* )  It would be nice to have a little gallery in our newsletter!

Quick Recap

In the last few issues we met:

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Ask Hua 🤓

I received an excellent question:

What are some places to get free fonts?

Before we dive in, I want to say--not all free fonts are equal. 

Designing a font is highly specialized, time-consuming work. Sometimes It can take years to finish a font. Many hobbyists and professionals put their font designs online. While doing this fosters creativity, not all platforms have quality assurance checks for the fonts uploaded.

When you search for free fonts from sites like Dafont.com, you might be using unfinished work, so you need to double-check and make sure the font you are thinking of using has all the letters and symbols you need. It is frustrating to create design works with poorly made tools. 

Here are a few platforms that have good selections of quality fonts. I also reviewed each and wrote some recommendations for you : )  

Mostly Free Fonts

📎 Google Fonts

• Fonts are checked for quality before being uploaded

• Features many fonts with multiple weights and styles, like (Libre Franklin, Piazzola, Bungee)

📎 Adobe Fonts 

• You need an adobe account (without purchasing a creative cloud subscription)

• Features font packs organized by themes

• Beware they will show you paid fonts when you search

📎 Font Squirrel

• Tags organized by genres to help you search

• Some fonts are not up to date

📎 Behance

• A platform for designers to showcase their work, and of course! You can find unique fonts here and beautiful visuals

• You have to know keywords search for (for example, logo font)

📎 Github

• If you are savvy with Github, it’s a good place to look for open-sourced fonts

• You can start by searching under topics here

📎 Dafont

• This site features many works by hobbyists

• Some fonts do not have full sets of letters and symbols

• Make sure there are no weird spacing issues between any two letters

• You can double-check for the full character set and spacing issues by typing a pangram

Pay a Little Fonts

If you are willing to pay a tiny bit, DJR and Futurefonts.xyz both have a good selection of fonts available. If you are looking for something decorative, these two places are excellent to start.

🗓️ DJR

• A cheap monthly subscription of in-progress fonts from a professional

• You get a different font every month and all the updates that come with each font

• This is great if you are working on multiple projects

🔮 Futurefonts.xyz

• This platform features work in progress fonts

• Each font comes with a report of what state the font is in

• Each purchase comes with free updates for the purchased font 

Lastly, an important note about licenses: Similar to a stock photo, each font comes with a license. Always read the license carefully to determine eligibility for usage. Stay out of trouble y’all!

Before we say goodbye, I want to know what you think of our content so far. Was there anything confusing? Is there something specific you want me to cover? Reply directly to this email to let me know your thoughts. I want to create content you enjoy!

If you like our newsletter, please share it with someone who finds it useful.

Have a nice week and see you in the next issue!