6 ms·

Tangentially related: there are quite a lot of good quality free software fonts out there. Some — like this typeface — are suited for display purposes, signage,

Tangentially related: there are quite a lot of good quality free software fonts out there. Some — like this typeface — are suited for display purposes, signage, and lettering. Others offer a full family of weights for typesetting body text. I have my own shortlist of long-time favourites. To name but a few: Gentium Book Basic is a delight to read in print; Titillium adds a nice touch to technical drawings; Hack traces its monospaced code font lineage back to Bitstream Vera (through DejaVu Sans Mono), which back then kicked off a whole new period of free software desktop look-and-feel. But I've never really found a site that collects these free software licensed fonts with curated reviews and use-cases. Sites like FontSquirrel offer a rough index, but contain no easy way to filter on more complex queries, and don't really show each typeface's strengths and weaknesses. Does such a site or community exist?

matt4077 7y ago
Google Fonts has at least Gentium and Titillium.
microcolonel 7y ago
Google fonts tends to have a lot of the really popular open license fonts.
Silhouette 7y ago
But I've never really found a site that collects these free software licensed fonts with curated reviews and use-cases. There's not much out there, I'm afraid. It looks like you're already aware of the sites that just list a million fonts and maybe let you try out rendering some sample text interactively. You might find sites like Typewolf[1] and Fonts In Use[2] interesting if you haven't come across them before. There's a little more curation and organisation there than on something like Google Fonts. But really, for free fonts, there's not a lot of detailed commentary in my experience. If you have specific questions or want advice about suitable fonts for a specific project, you could also ask on the Typography subreddit[3], which is fairly active and has a few people who know what they're doing around. [1] https://www.typewolf.com/ https://www.typewolf.com/ [2] https://fontsinuse.com/ https://fontsinuse.com/ [3] https://www.reddit.com/r/typography/ https://www.reddit.com/r/typography/
elliekelly 7y ago
Not that I’m aware but if you were to build such a thing I’d most definitely be an enthusiastic user.
- kiwicopple 7y ago
  I made something very minimal the other day because I was tired of setting up fonts in all my repos. https://quickfont.xyz/ https://quickfont.xyz/ It doesn't have many fonts at the moment but feel free to open an issue with any font requests and I will add it to the site: https://github.com/kiwicopple/quick-font/issues https://github.com/kiwicopple/quick-font/issues
  - elliekelly 7y ago
    Awesome! Thanks!
skyfaller 7y ago
How about https://beautifulwebtype.com/ https://beautifulwebtype.com/ ? "Guide to Only the Best Open-Source Typefaces" There are also some more opinionated FOSS font forges like https://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/ https://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/ and (slightly bizarre) https://www.velvetyne.fr/ https://www.velvetyne.fr/
- Freak_NL 7y ago
  https://beautifulwebtype.com/ https://beautifulwebtype.com/ looks like a neat resource, thanks. No filtering or search, but very nice type specimens.
Tomte 7y ago
In German, but the selection is good: https://praegnanz.de/weblog/freie-schriften-im-mini-portrait https://praegnanz.de/weblog/freie-schriften-im-mini-portrait https://praegnanz.de/weblog/schriften-im-mini-portrait-ii https://praegnanz.de/weblog/schriften-im-mini-portrait-ii And many in-depth discussions like https://praegnanz.de/weblog/gentium https://praegnanz.de/weblog/gentium or https://praegnanz.de/weblog/cardo https://praegnanz.de/weblog/cardo
- Freak_NL 7y ago
  That's a pretty solid review of Gentium. Nice resource.

matt4077 7y ago

Google Fonts has at least Gentium and Titillium.

microcolonel 7y ago

Google fonts tends to have a lot of the really popular open license fonts.

Silhouette 7y ago

But I've never really found a site that collects these free software licensed fonts with curated reviews and use-cases. There's not much out there, I'm afraid. It looks like you're already aware of the sites that just list a million fonts and maybe let you try out rendering some sample text interactively. You might find sites like Typewolf[1] and Fonts In Use[2] interesting if you haven't come across them before. There's a little more curation and organisation there than on something like Google Fonts. But really, for free fonts, there's not a lot of detailed commentary in my experience. If you have specific questions or want advice about suitable fonts for a specific project, you could also ask on the Typography subreddit[3], which is fairly active and has a few people who know what they're doing around. [1] https://www.typewolf.com/ https://www.typewolf.com/ [2] https://fontsinuse.com/ https://fontsinuse.com/ [3] https://www.reddit.com/r/typography/ https://www.reddit.com/r/typography/

elliekelly 7y ago

Not that I’m aware but if you were to build such a thing I’d most definitely be an enthusiastic user.

kiwicopple 7y ago
I made something very minimal the other day because I was tired of setting up fonts in all my repos. https://quickfont.xyz/ https://quickfont.xyz/ It doesn't have many fonts at the moment but feel free to open an issue with any font requests and I will add it to the site: https://github.com/kiwicopple/quick-font/issues https://github.com/kiwicopple/quick-font/issues
- elliekelly 7y ago
  Awesome! Thanks!

skyfaller 7y ago

How about https://beautifulwebtype.com/ https://beautifulwebtype.com/ ? "Guide to Only the Best Open-Source Typefaces" There are also some more opinionated FOSS font forges like https://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/ https://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/ and (slightly bizarre) https://www.velvetyne.fr/ https://www.velvetyne.fr/

Freak_NL 7y ago
https://beautifulwebtype.com/ https://beautifulwebtype.com/ looks like a neat resource, thanks. No filtering or search, but very nice type specimens.

Tomte 7y ago

In German, but the selection is good: https://praegnanz.de/weblog/freie-schriften-im-mini-portrait https://praegnanz.de/weblog/freie-schriften-im-mini-portrait https://praegnanz.de/weblog/schriften-im-mini-portrait-ii https://praegnanz.de/weblog/schriften-im-mini-portrait-ii And many in-depth discussions like https://praegnanz.de/weblog/gentium https://praegnanz.de/weblog/gentium or https://praegnanz.de/weblog/cardo https://praegnanz.de/weblog/cardo

Freak_NL 7y ago
That's a pretty solid review of Gentium. Nice resource.