Need your own Font?

Community Forums/Developer Stations/Need your own Font?

Krischan(Posted 2013) [#1]
You could try using Fonstruct. Easy to use interface and you can export/share the font with others. The license of your font is up to you (share it = CC). The page has tons of free fonts.

I made my own font in less than two hours for free. More fun than work :-)


Hardcoal(Posted 2013) [#2]
cool thanks


Krischan(Posted 2013) [#3]
And if you want to convert a font to another format (for ex. OTF) you can use Free Font Converter. This could fix problems with monospaced fonts which don't appear 100% monospaced (for example lines with dots and spaces).


Kryzon(Posted 2013) [#4]
I just use FontSquirrel (http://www.fontsquirrel.com).
Probably the only font website that cares about sharing fonts that are actually free for commercial use.


virtlands(Posted 2013) [#5]
I love fonts. Thanks to Krischan & Kryzon for the links.

Over the years, I've probably squirreled away over 6000 fonts by now, from various free websites.

I haven't tried creating my own font yet, since there are already so many out there.

Sometimes you can quickly download lots of fonts at a time, using a website copier, such as HTTrack.
http://www.httrack.com/

That works on some websites, but not all; Sometimes it doesn't get the fonts.

The hard way to do it is to click-and-peck about 500 fonts by hand, one-at-a-time.
I've done it the slow way too; that takes hours.

I've noticed that some fonts are so fat (in megabytes) that they seem to take a long time to load in Blitz3D.

Some of my favorite fonts are :
Trashco, Beyond Wonderland, Astron Boy, Ego Trip, Deadly Breakfast,
Cool Dots, Goodbye Cruel World, HypnOtic, "Got Heroin", Krystal, SnippletWeak, WebPixel, Valium, & Warm Milk,...,

http://www.dafont.com/
http://www.1001fonts.com/trashco-font.html
http://abduzeedo.com/15-awesome-free-fonts
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FontYukle is also interesting:
http://www.fontyukle.net/en/list-yeni,1

You can download font packs, (already zipped up):
http://www.fontyukle.net/en/fontpacks.php



xlsior(Posted 2013) [#6]
Another interesting one I came across some time ago:

http://www.myscriptfont.com/

That one allows you to download a template with empty boxes that you can download and print out.
then use your own handwriting to write out the entire alphabet, scan it back in, and upload to the website.
Moments later, you can download a custom TTF that was created from your own handwriting.

(Alternatively, you can hand-draw whatever font you like that way of course)


xlsior(Posted 2013) [#7]
and another useful link: a LOT of the so-called 'free' fonts are anything but -- if you look at the font info, you'll find that the copyright info has been replaced by some generic scraper info, but that doesn't mean that the font is actually free.

I've seen a LOT of fonts over the years that are offered online as 'public domain' or 'free', that are in reality anything but... which is the kind of thing that can come back to bite you down the road should you use it in a game or something and the real owner notices it.
(Back in the day you would see a ton of those '5,000 free truetype fonts!' CD's, which were blatantly ripped from other sources)

Anyway, A few years ago there was a website called aenigmafonts.com which offered hundreds of fonts completely free, including for commercial use. The creator (Aenigma) has since stopped making more fonts and the domain name lapsed, but you can still download them from other sources, e.g. http://www.dafont.com/%C3%86nigma.d188

Nice variety of font styles, and safe to use without surprises for your own projects.


virtlands(Posted 2013) [#8]
From xlsior's topic, these were some of my favorites from the AEnigma collection:





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and another useful link: a LOT of the so-called 'free' fonts are anything but -- if you look at the font info, you'll find that the copyright info has been replaced by some generic scraper info, but that doesn't mean that the font is actually free.

In that case, we let the fonts rest on our hard drives. At the moment we decide to use them,
we'll check their copyright© information and terms of use, ..and hope.


virtlands(Posted 2013) [#9]
Here are some more font websites I discovered:

[ If some of this text is too small for your eyes, then just do Ctrl++ within your browser. ]

Online BitFont Maker --> http://www.pentacom.jp/soft/ex/font/edit_canvas.html

http://www.google.com/fonts/
http://www.1001freefonts.com/
http://www.abstractfonts.com/
http://www.fontspace.com/
http://www.urbanfonts.com/free-fonts.htm
http://www.highfonts.com/default.aspx
http://www.fontgarden.com/
http://www.fontspace.com/
http://chank.com/freefonts.php
http://fontfabric.com/
http://www.myscriptfont.com/ { xlsior's links }
http://www.dafont.com/
http://www.fontsquirrel.com/ { Kryzon's link }
http://fontstruct.com/ { Krischan's link }

The Big List of Free Font Sites --> http://www.pixelprospector.com/the-big-list-of-free-font-sites/

Combobulate: Another Big List of Free Font Websites --> http://www.combobulate.com/node/21

- http://www.pentacom.jp/soft/ex/font/museum.cgi { BitFont Museum }
- http://losttype.com/browse/
- http://tackorama.net/Fonts/fonts.htm
- http://fontfabric.com/category/free/
- http://www.acidfonts.com/
- http://www.searchfreefonts.com/
- http://www.awwwards.com/100-greatest-free-fonts-collection.html
- http://abduzeedo.com/tags/free
- http://www.instantshift.com/category/fonts/
- http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/11/08/40-excellent-freefonts-for-professional-design/
- http://designreviver.com/freebies/50-awesome-free-fonts-for-professional-design/
- http://designreviver.com/freebies/10-great-font-resources/
- http://www.instantshift.com/2008/10/23/22-most-used-free-fonts-by-professional-designers/
- http://sixrevisions.com/resources/creative-unique-free-fonts/
- http://www.instantshift.com/2010/11/16/40-high-quality-fresh-free-fonts-for-designers-and-developers/
- http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/free-fresh-fonts/
- http://creativenerds.co.uk/freebies/30-free-fonts-which-are-perfect-for-professional-logo-designs/
- http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/fonts-used-logos-popular-brands/
- http://justcreative.com/2009/03/04/the-top-100-best-fonts-of-all-time/
- http://justcreative.com/2008/09/23/top-7-fonts-used-by-professionals-in-graphic-design-2/
- http://pixelfonts.style-force.net/
- http://www.piregwan.com/ressources/ressources_screenfonts.php
- http://www.myfonts.com/
- http://www.microsoft.com/typography/default.mspx { Microsoft Typography }
- http://www.webpagepublicity.com/free-fonts.html
- http://www.beautifulfonts.com/
- http://www.fontdiner.com/silver.html
- http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/fonts/p/free_fonts.htm
- http://xsspl.tripod.com/Fonts/
- http://www.fontfreak.com/fonts-a.htm
- http://unix.temple.edu/~phanley/fonts/index.html

- http://fonts.tom7.com/


- http://apostrophiclab.pedroreina.net/ { spanish website }
- http://fontleech.com/
- http://moorstation.org/typoasis/designers/lab/a_d.htm
- http://www.fontshop.com/freefonts/
- http://www.clavis.ne.jp/~sonic/segasonic/act5/font.htm
- http://www.lowing.org/fonts/ { Programmer's Fonts }
- http://johnmartz.com/fonts/
- http://www.eknp.com/
- http://www.iamcal.com/misc/fonts/
- http://www.grsites.com/archive/fonts/
- http://letterheadfonts.com/index.php
- http://www.dsg4.com/04/extra/bitmap/ { Great source of tiny fonts. }
- http://swank.ca/caffeen/fonts/
- http://bitmapmania.m78.com/plus/bmfont01.html { BitMapMania }

Useful Font Tools:
- http://fontstruct.com/
- http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/
- http://www.wordle.net/
- http://www.freefontconverter.com/ { Free Font Converter }
- http://www.xiles.net/nexusfont/ { Nexus, Font Manager }

----------------------------------------------------
{ Common fonts to all versions of Windows & Mac }
http://www.ampsoft.net/webdesign-l/WindowsMacFonts.html
http://web.mit.edu/jmorzins/www/fonts.html { Safe Web Fonts }
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/top-10-fonts-designers-love/

--- Unicode Font links --------------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_font { includes links to Unicode fonts }
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitstream_Cyberbit

http://www.alanwood.net/unicode/fonts.html
http://sourceforge.net/projects/freeunifont/ { Free Unicode Fonts }

http://www.unifont.org/fontguide/ { The Unicode Font Guide }
http://www.mufi.info/ { Medieval Unicode Font Initiative }
http://apagreekkeys.org/NAUdownload.html { GreekKeys }
http://shapecatcher.com/unicodefonts.html { More unicode font packages }

-- You can display almost all unicode fonts within Blitz3D,
but it requires the FastImage package, (which is not free ).
http://www.fastlibs.com/index.php

In case you want to know, there is this excellent & free unicode editor,
that supports over 54500 unicode characters, 300+ languages.
It would also be a great way to study fonts.

SC UniPad --> http://www.unipad.org/main/
SC UniPad Online version --> http://tinyurl.com/l99yshj


Kryzon(Posted 2013) [#10]
In that case, we let the fonts rest on our hard drives. At the moment we decide to use them,
we'll check their copyright© information and terms of use, ..and hope.

I think it's best to check the license info right at the moment you find the font interesting, before downloading it.
This way you make sure to only install fonts in your computer that are permissive - no need to worry about licensing when you are working on Inkscape, GIMP, Writer etc.


virtlands(Posted 2013) [#11]
I concur. I download lots of fonts, but I don't "install" them. They just sit there.

In most cases, the E.U.L.A. is embedded in the same Zip the font is, which is easy.

A laptop with 5000 extra fonts installed.... no longer runs.


Yan(Posted 2013) [#12]
Stick Nexus Font on a Flash Drive along with all your fonts. No more extended boot times and your entire font library is available to you on any (Windows) machine. :o)