Z. D. Smith / June 22, 2005 @ 2:15 am

It seems to me that even more valuable than font links are links to particularly high-quality fonts that you come across. Really, an active free-font-of-the-moment blog would be absolutely great.

Haren / June 22, 2005 @ 3:18 am

I second that

Santiago Ximenez / June 22, 2005 @ 3:36 am

I second that too.

Dan Reynolds / June 22, 2005 @ 4:08 am

There is one, sort of, in German…

articles written about new free fonts, many of which are foundry give aways that are covered here. The pictures (and links) alone are worth looking at.

http://praegnanz.de/essays

Matt / June 22, 2005 @ 6:31 am

I third that.

Ben Whitehouse / June 22, 2005 @ 6:50 am

I think also what might be a cool feature is the occasional font critique to tie some of that free time between free fonts. Or even a spotlight on a font that is awesome, but you have to pay for… like Scala Sans my new personal favorite font.

Great site.

Hans / June 22, 2005 @ 10:36 am

Free fonts are, well, free, and that makes it easy for us to download them, try them out, and decide if we want to keep them or not. We lose nothing by deciding that the font isn’t good, because it’s free.

However, with pay fonts, we don’t have that kind of safety. We need to know more about the font before we decide to purchase it. Yes, there are the little “try before you buy” font widgets on the websites, but that’s just not enough. We need font recommendations.

A font of the week would be good, with links to related/similar fonts and maybe even free look-alikes.

I know which free fonts are worth my time, thanks to Fontleech. Now I need to know the same for pay fonts.

joey / June 22, 2005 @ 10:47 am

a couple of people have brought up considering some (limited) coverage of commercial fonts, but i don’t really think that’s the way i want to go. i do like the idea of spotlighting specific fonts (even from sites that have already been covered), and i think you’ll be seeing some posts like that pretty soon.

James Higginbotham / June 22, 2005 @ 10:48 am

Another interesting twist - consider featuring past fonts. I am rather new here, and I would imagine that the problem of duplicate posts are either that a) the person is new and hasn’t see your posting or b) they saw it some time ago but forgot about it and need to be reminded. I like the idea of showing pay-for fonts as well, and maybe a mixture of “best-of” and new content will help new folks see what’s “new to me” while keeping the veterans interested. Hope that helps - keep up the great work, and consider widening the execution while keeping the vision!

Stephen / June 22, 2005 @ 11:07 am

Hans,

For font recommendations you might enjoy Typographica and Newstoday’s QBN Typecase.

Also: Our Favorite Fonts of 2004

cs / June 22, 2005 @ 11:34 am

freefont.de

Peter Lakanen / June 22, 2005 @ 11:54 am

There is more than enough content for this web site if you just highlighted Manfred Klein’s stuff (http://moorstation.org/typoasis/designers/klein05/index.htm). I know you’ve mentioned him before (I discovered him through FontLeech), but they guy keeps cranking out free font after free font. The only downside to Manfred’s stuff is the volume — he puts out too much stuff! Of course, FontLeech is the perfect filter for separating the wheat from the chaff. Sometimes Manfred really does some oddball stuff, but when he gets a font right, it is awesome.

I also suggest you make posts about font designers, font history and design stuff. Yeah, I know that’s contrary to primary focus of FontLeech, but since we’re talking about content, I thought I would suggest it. This is the only font blog I read, so I would enjoy other font-related content.

Meat Lightning / June 22, 2005 @ 12:27 pm

What Z.D. said… and maybe also devote some time to clueing us in on new, cool commercial fonts? (font patrol?) Maybe expand the focus a bit to free & CHEAP?

Whatever you end up doing, thanks for a great blog!! I hope you can find a way to keep it going!!

fontana / June 22, 2005 @ 12:34 pm

I sent a list April 3 of eleven free font sites I believe the fontleech audience would appreciate. None have appeared on fontleech yet. Until today I did not think that perhaps that note became lost. So, I sent another copy today, plus a supplemental e-mail giving six more suggested sites. Most offer some or all original work by the person running the site. They are not the “5,000 fonts from all over” variety. Surely not all 17 sites will have to be rejected, when there’s a shortage of suggestions. These notes were addressed to “leech@fontleech.com” and did not bounce back. Joey, if you do not receive these latest two e-mails, please reply in this thread or to my e-mail address furnished with this post. Tell me how I can get the suggestions to you. I didn’t want to post all the links to this thread and spoil people’s pleasure of examining them one-by-one over the next few weeks or months. I appreciate your service and hope this helps some. (If anyone else has sent suggestions which have not been featured, you might want to re-send them, too. Just in case.)

mark / June 22, 2005 @ 1:17 pm

Scala Sans is a wanna-be of Gill Sans

joey / June 22, 2005 @ 2:27 pm

i was actually just in the process of emailing you. i’ll just cut and paste:

Thanks for your email. I’m guessing your first one must have been mistakenly nuked by my spam filter (i’m getting about 1,000 messages a day now). Some of these sites look very good, I will definitely use them!

Libby / June 22, 2005 @ 8:06 pm

Here are a few pages that might be useful (don’t think you’ve covered them, but could (as always) be wrong)…

http://www.fontsite.com/Pages/FFDownloads.html
http://www.stormtype.com/free.html
http://www.madtype.net/free.html
http://www.fontdiner.com/silver.html
http://letterheadfonts.com/downloads/index.shtml

Libby / June 22, 2005 @ 8:07 pm

Oh, and I stumbled across http://www.fonts.info/fontstore/product_info.php?cPath=21_46&products_id=34 (but was too lazy to sign up)

rollerpimp / June 23, 2005 @ 4:30 am

i was wondering if you could change the programing so that it launches a new window with the new link instead of going to that page. It is easier to come back when you have multiple links. I don’t know what you design your page in but I know that is an option in Dreamweaver.

Pete / June 23, 2005 @ 8:20 am

There’s no need to keep up with some arbitrary posting frequency. It’s better to just post when there’s something really worthwhile. Through the magic of newsfeeds, everybody can all be notified when there’s something new.

The Daily Sketch / June 24, 2005 @ 6:59 am

Perhaps a post on how one could create and build free fonts for public digestion? How exactly does one do that? Are their programs that would allow me to create new fonts?

GM / June 24, 2005 @ 6:20 pm

Yes, there are a few programs that you can use (Fontographer, fontlab, Softly, etc..) but the main thing you need is the ideas. Skill helps, but you must have an idea, and the will to complete the font. Experience brings the skill and the increase in quality. Hope you have a good imagination, as clones of existing fonts just no longer cut the mustard.

Stephen / June 24, 2005 @ 6:37 pm

FontLab offers 3 levels of font production tools: TypeTool, Fontographer, and the mother of all font makers, FontLab Studio Pro. I’d recommend TypeTool to get started.

(r)amanda / June 27, 2005 @ 9:27 am

Maybe you could post links to articles about type design, trends in fonts, etc. I would wager that anyone who reads your site regularly would also be interested in theory and history and application. Maybe fontleech could be a window into all things font related in addition to being a great place to find free downloads? Just my two cents.

Ike / June 27, 2005 @ 9:30 pm

Being something of a newcomer myself, I second the notion to revisit past coverage, where applicable. Of course, not all the sites and original resources are going to be around, but type isn’t well-suited to a “best-of” approach anyway. I think we all enjoy the discovery of freely-available, project, niché and showcase typefaces with as much zeal, and unless I’m the only one with a really shoddy memory, as often as not I end up surprising myself two or three times with the same font, imagined in a different light or uncovered during the frenzied search for something else entirely. Surely after ten years of carefully sniffing out the goodies, everything old can be new again, to someone, at least.

Personally, if there were an opportunity I could take with such a project, it would be in pursuit of articles dealing with usage, the kind of almost anecdotal notes and notices that type designers attach to certain fonts or jobs that are done with them. I’ll bet there’s a pretty rich history behind, say, whatever face was chosen to adorn the manhole covers for (whatever the largest foundry is), or whatever the military’s contractors chose to uniformly cover most of the buttons on its naval equipment, or something equally mundane. There’s a type designer behind that, albeit at a hell of a distance, and maybe there really is an interesting story.

Anyway, as much as I’ll ramble, I doubt I could come up with anything as useful and unique as Fontleech has proven to be for me. I’ve only been exposed to it for a month or two, but I like what I see very much, and you do a hell of a job providing rewarding content that simply isn’t found elsewhere. If this is work, keep up the good work!

adam / June 30, 2005 @ 6:58 am

Get Firefox and you can just open the sites in new tabs. Problem solved.

aphrospice / July 4, 2005 @ 10:25 am

I agree.
Dont feel obliged to posting something every day or even every week. Only those worthy of keeping as an audience will check for quality updates frequently.

rollerpimp / July 12, 2005 @ 6:08 am

So what are you going to do? I saw several people say they had sent sites in but those have not been shown. Should we keep checking or is it dead?

ephi / July 14, 2005 @ 8:34 pm

I like April Fool font listed here and they preview it with a nice background as well :)

Libby / July 15, 2005 @ 12:25 am

Fontshop has a new free font up now - oxide solid light. http://www.fontshop.com/freefonts/

omit / July 18, 2005 @ 7:33 pm

I found this great number font from PsyOps while looking for something else: Crash Numbering

omit / July 20, 2005 @ 4:09 pm

This guy has some great free typefaces: Sentinel Type

joey / July 20, 2005 @ 4:45 pm

yep! :D

a. / July 21, 2005 @ 8:31 pm

You rock!

Jay / July 26, 2005 @ 5:54 pm

Are you taking a break, or did you just stop doing this?

Dave / July 28, 2005 @ 1:08 pm

Until updates resume, let’s just share the wealth.

This site has several freebies mixed in, and I didn’t see it in the links section yet:

http://www.flop.jp.org/

-Dave

Waylon / July 29, 2005 @ 11:37 am

I can’t seem to download any of them…anyone else have this problem?

Dave / July 29, 2005 @ 12:08 pm

>>I can’t seem to download any of them…anyone else have this problem?

You can only download the fonts marked ‘FREE’. You need to click a thumbnail to load a preview page to find out if the’re free. Several of the ‘Shareware’ pages have download buttons, but they’re emply links.

-Dave

Dave / July 29, 2005 @ 12:09 pm

My free font site of the day:

Blue Vinyl:

http://www.bvfonts.com/free/freeware.shtml

Dave / August 2, 2005 @ 6:36 am

Two more sites:

http://www.nerfect.com/typefree.html

http://www.girlswhowearglasses.com/

-Dave

Dave / August 3, 2005 @ 7:39 am

Some useful retro fonts here:
http://www.freakyfonts.de/index.html

A few grunge fonts here:
http://www.i2design.net/main.html

and a ton of ‘typical’ free fonts here that are mostly hand drawn
http://www.pizzadude.dk/freefonts.php

Jay / August 4, 2005 @ 12:55 pm

I thought the point of this site was to post good free fonts…

eray / August 4, 2005 @ 5:11 pm

i am interested in seeing typography in urban spaces.

there is the link below as an example that why not associates has done in england. anyone came across such work? or done such work?

what i admire is, typography becomes an artwork itself and helps to change the face of urban spaces with a “content”…

http://www.fontshop.com/features/fontmag/003/003_whynot/index.cfm

Marcus / August 12, 2005 @ 1:02 am

Doesn’t anybody use serifs anymore? Garamond would spin in his grave if he say how “clever” we were trying to be with sans serifs. Now, I’m not trying to bag on sans serif (I can love Futura and Myriad as much as the next guy), but I’m not seeing quality serifs (modern or traditional) like I used to.

Dave / August 18, 2005 @ 12:38 pm

This guy has a lot of fonts, and there are some real gems to be found. A few are Buro Destructish.

http://homepage.mac.com/bird2/

Francis Franck / August 22, 2005 @ 6:24 am

While we’re waiting for new site listings, there’s an interesting new font at a site you’re probably already familiar with:

http://www.chank.com/freefont_detail.php?sku=1095

It’s a weathered blackletter reminding of early 20th-century German posters, signs, etc.

reggie / August 23, 2005 @ 1:55 pm

Abandoned blogs are kind of sad…

Dinsdale / August 23, 2005 @ 9:43 pm

Another potentially interesting topic for at least one entry: Font combinations.

Today I was playing around and discovered that a font I thought I would never have any reason to use simply because it clashes with everything actually complements a couple of fonts I picked up from links in this very blog:

I Blame My Parents…
BD Bardust
LVDC IKKOUE

Sure, none of them are “easy reading” but should your need for legibility ever be surpassed by your need for a lot of crazy angles…

Christian Watson / September 5, 2005 @ 11:39 am

If you are running out of free fonts to add, why not start a category about commercial fonts. You could break it down further by price.

I’m sure many people would be interested in learning about cheap fonts, in the same way that iStockPhoto is a great resource for cheap photos. I think most web designers are okay with paying something for a font, just not too much.

Allan White / September 6, 2005 @ 10:16 am

Gill can’t hold a candle to Scala! I cannot for the life of me understand how Gill gained such prominence. Scala is classic - in both sans and serif. My only critique of Scala is that I, um, overused it in the late nineties. =)

Kevan / October 13, 2005 @ 11:56 pm

So has anyone started where this blog left off? Lots of great ideas and comments and suggestions here. . . Joey? You there man?

lazlo / October 21, 2005 @ 5:14 pm

Here is a link to what I consider to be the most in-depth font site going. A truly unique site that has been around for at least 6+ years. Continuously updated but the look never changes, just hundreds of pages and links about fonts.

On Snots and Fonts
http://jeff.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/fonts.html

Free fonts listed an so much more…

Guillem Catala / December 15, 2005 @ 12:18 pm

don’t forget this site for download fonts it’s not new but one of my favs, what do you think?

kemie / December 27, 2005 @ 6:14 pm

i love this site. however, there is still much unexplored out there.
be glad to share my 10 years of free font link collecting, and my personal font site, http://www.pixilate.com

Gerald Lange / January 22, 2006 @ 8:57 pm

The end of free fonts could easily have been predicted. One word. OpenType.

Gerald