Archive for Foundries
March 18, 2005 at 10:04 am / Foundries, Japan
codeman38 has another Japanese foundry for us: Add. Like Digital Dream Design, they have a nice selection of free vector and bitmap fonts (if you aren’t sick of those yet). Check out Cityboy and Loops, as well as all the pixel fonts.
Cody made a point that I agree with completely: it’s incredible that so many of these Japanese foundries with amazing free fonts are flying completely under the radar. But why? It’s not like they’re hard to find. Are people put off by Japanese sites? Is a .jp domain name and the chance of some garbled characters really that scary? Especially when the payoff (tons of great free fonts) is potentially huge?
Maybe. But I think the answer is simple: nobody wants to look too hard. I’m sure most people searching for free fonts don’t go beyond the second or third page of spam-clogged Google results or the same old heavily-linked sites we’ve all seen.
But that’s why you come here, right? So it all works out.
March 17, 2005 at 1:24 pm / Foundries, Japan
codeman38 (whose work we have already covered) sent me links to a couple more Japanese foundries with free fonts. One of my favorites is Digital Dream Design. Though their interface is definitely tough to work your way through, the patient surfer can find some great stuff there like Naturalism (pictured). If I had known about them a couple of weeks ago, I definitely would have included them in the Pixel Font Blowout. Their bitmap fonts are right up there with the best.
March 17, 2005 at 11:56 am / Foundries, Japan
COM4t is yet another Japanese foundry. They’ve got a bunch of clean, professional free fonts like Spirequal Light, Oldnew and the Familian family. I probably don’t have to tell you how rare it is to find practical, useful fonts for free.
March 16, 2005 at 9:00 am / Foundries, Europe
K-Type is an independent British foundry with several very inexpensive commercial fonts–and three completely free ones! Mandatory is based on the font used on England’s license plates and Lexia Readable is an interesting sans serif. Strangely enough, dafont.com has Roadway, which is a great street sign font that I can’t find anywhere on K-Type’s website.
March 15, 2005 at 1:00 pm / Foundries, Europe
It seems like I see the same half dozen grunge fonts over and over again. Not just on the web, but on crappy album covers, t-shirts and in video games. And the thing is, they suck. And believe me, I should know, I designed one of them (Uptown, which I apologize for. I was young.).
So how come I’ve never seen anyone use Cagna, by Typotek? It’s actually good. And it’s perfect for your roommate’s friend’s band’s non-profit organization’s website that you’ve been working on.
Those guys rock, by the way.
Update: For those of you who don’t speak French, you can head straight to Typotek’s download page.
March 14, 2005 at 12:34 pm / Foundries, Japan
GAU+ (Graphic Arts Unit) is a nice Japanese site with several cool, usable free fonts. While a lot of sites have only one or two decent fonts and dozens of crappy ones, GAU has a pretty good ratio of quality fonts despite their limited selection. I downloaded Milk Choco and Pop Magic.
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March 14, 2005 at 8:44 am / Foundries, Japan
If it seems like you’re seeing a lot of Japanese sites here lately, well, you are. Lovedesign is a Japanese foundry offering just short of 50 free fonts. I heartily recommend Poo3 and Gameboy Gamegirl.
March 11, 2005 at 1:01 pm / Foundries
It’s hard to look for free fonts on the web without stumbling across some of Ray Larabie’s work. In the 10 year history of Larabie Fonts, Ray has produced hundreds of typefaces that are available for download free of charge. Exploring the site should help you kill the rest of this slow Friday afternoon.
Obviously, giving all your work away doesn’t pay the bills. So in 2001, Ray moved away from the free font scene with the launch of Typodermic, his commercial foundry. But wait, there’s good news. Ray offers a free typeface from several of Typodermic’s commercial families. Check out Pakenham, Fenwick and the brand new Expressway.
