: Where do professional designers go to look for typefaces? I was reading The Non-Designer's Design Book by Robin Williams and was very impressed how on almost every page, Ms. Williams seems to

@Bryan765

Go to Google Fonts. You can get the font files and they have a wide range of open source fonts. You can choose what font you want based on width, slant, style, script, thickness, and much more.

Vote Up Vote Down

@Sims5801359

Just adding a few to the ones already posted:


T26
You Work For Them
Village Fonts
Font Smith
Grilli Type – made in Switzerland
Lineto – made in Switzerland

Vote Up Vote Down

@Jennifer810

If you are a business or if you have a legal department; using free fonts is a good way to open your company to a lawsuit since open source basically makes you liable for anyone who ripped it off.

Just go with a professional grade library like fonts.com

I wouldn't take a free computer off the street from someone if my company needed a cheaper way to run

Vote Up Vote Down

@Ogunnowo857

For good quality fonts you might want to search for Font Foundry on whatever your favorite search engine is and then look at some of the current foundries around. One nice one is Lost Type Foundry. Generally a font foundry is going to be much higher quality then a lot of the other sites that just have thousands of fonts from anyone that got their hands on the required software.

Another suggestion is to look up articles on top fonts on sites like Smashing Magazine or Six Revisions.

I'm not familiar with any books that just have fonts but there are font CDs, most notably is Adobe Fontfolio which I believe is now in version 11.

Vote Up Vote Down

@Samaraweera207

Dafont is another source for free fonts, but be advised some (most?) are only free for personal use, not commercial use. Make sure you read the author's notes regarding licensing.

Vote Up Vote Down

@Samaraweera207

Not exactly an answer on "where to go to find fonts", Scott has mentioned the best places to do that, but in my experience it's great to also start from history.

A good book on typography (one of my favorites and excellent if you are new to the subject is Just my Type by Simon Garfield) can give you a solid foundation on how typefaces have been developing since they were first created / used.

Every font choice has a reason behind it, it tells a story or at transmits something. This is what opened my eyes to the amazing art of typography, so I guess I'm a font-history advocate :)

Vote Up Vote Down

@Nimeshi706

While this is primarily a list of sites, know that browsing a website is not the only way to look for typefaces. Some type foundries still publish specimen catalogs, and some now have mobile apps and Adobe plugins. Many will also have e-mail newsletters to update on new things.


MyFonts
FontFont
Typophile
Letterhead Fonts
Linotype
FontShop – A great collection of fonts including all of the FontFont collection. They have a plugin to help you browse while you work and their now-digital FontBook is a really extensive thing.
Emigre – One of the pioneers of digital typography, but they've continued to make quality type. You might recognize Mrs Eaves from the WordPress logo. You can also get their catalogs for just a couple of bucks.
House Industries – Prolific, cool, unique. They have some great fonts. They distribute their well-designed catalogs for free. They also run a website called Photo-Lettering where you can buy typeset headlines at a low flat price if you don't want to pay the full price for a font you'll only use once.
Sudtipos – Their stuff is available on MyFonts, but sometimes it's nice to browse straight from the foundry. They tend to make really high-quality, script-y, hand-lettered-looking stuff.
Hoefler & Frere Jones
Chank – Mostly quirky display faces.
Process Type
Font Bros – Specializing in Retro faces
Lost Type Co-Op – a foundry releasing on a 'pay-what-you-want' pricing model. One of the few places to get a really nice set of curated faces for very little money (free, if you want). The drawback, however, is their stuff tends to be over-used.
Adobe – one of the grandfathers of the type foundries.
Okay Type Foundry


Webfonts


Webtype
Fontsquirrel – Great free webfont packages with the actual different vector versions. Also has a tool to generate webfonts from your own ttf fonts.
Google Fonts – Massive selection of CDN hosted fonts that you can also download for desktop use
Typekit – Commercial webfont provider




I encourage others to edit this post and add additional links if something has been missed. But please try and refrain from specific, opinion-based, typeface recommendations. This should be a list of where a user can find typefaces, not what specific fonts you feel are better than others.



I don't think there's any typeface "commonly used by professionals." Every designer has their own preferred typefaces. And many designers simply use what's on their system and rarely, if ever, purchase additional fonts unless they are forced to.

Vote Up Vote Down