Type and font resources for all

There are lots of sites on the web that offer advice on fonts. Here’s my list of some of the best resources including books, blogs and learning tools. This page will be updated.

Learning

How to use fonts to create the right reaction
A transcript of an Ask The Expert session I hosted with business support group, Drive The Network

Robert Bringhurst
Robert Bringhurst’s typography-bible The Elements of Typographic Style is an essential read for anyone wanting more in-depth knowledge about typography and print. This site applies the learning from the original book to web-design.

Fontology
A workbook for fonts.

FontsShop Glossary
A great place to buy fonts and the Glossary is a good resource of type terms.

Typedia
This site connects type designers and lists updates to typefaces.

Where to buy fonts

Design software such as Adobe Creative Cloud apps and Affinity allow the user to add new fonts. It’s not just the design you’re paying for, it’s also the coding. Each character (or glyph) has a unique code (or unicode) embedded into it so that the computer knows what to display. Poor coding means that documents won’t create a PDF or display correctly, or ultimately corrupt your system. Be careful about where you get fonts from. Here’s my recommendations.

Adobe fonts
Formerly Typekit. Adobe is a powerful name so expect to see the best designers here. Fonts are unlimited if you sign up to a Creative Cloud plan.

My Fonts
It has the largest collection of fonts and offers self-hosting options.

FontShop
Owned by the very influential Monotype which is the parent company of My Fonts!

Cloud.typography
Owned by the foundry, Hoefler & Co.

Type Network
Contains some lovely fonts from independent designers and small foundries.

Google Fonts
Google’s free web font hosting service. Do pick through the options with care and read a little about the font first. The standards are a lot better than they used to be.

Font Foundries and Type Designers

205.tf
French foundry with some beautiful fonts, Louize is a favourite, and Anderson. Both would look great in body copy.

A2-Type
Based in London with some gorgeous faces, I love A2-Mazarin which I saw used by Penguin Random House recently in chapter openers alongside English 1766 (not a combination I would have chosen but it worked well!)

Bold Monday
Design studio and creators of the gorgeous Brando Arabic which can be used with a Sans version.

Colphon
Creators of Apercu (a really comprehensive and flexible font), Peggs (I love the negative spaces) and other gems.

Daltonmagg
I seem to use lots of fonts from this foundry without realising it! Aktiv Grotesk often pops up in my branding designs as does Blemy.

Emigre
I first came across Mr Eaves and Mrs Eaves during my MA in graphic design and typography and fell in love. A great combination that work really well in print. Lots of gorgeous typefaces to be found here. And the merchandise is the business.

House Industries
A vast range of signage and display typefaces and they’re publishing the House Industries Lettering Manual this year - as you can guess I have it on pre-order!

Indian Type Foundry
The designers here specialise in Indian and Latin scripts.

The League of Moveable Type
Raleway has had over a million downloads from their website alone and it’s no surprise. It filled a need for a stylish cross-platform sans-serif and it’s one of my favourites. Beautiful used as a display face.

P22
Do read about Stern Pro - it’s an amazing story and a beautiful design. It’s a reminder of why it’s good to read about the history of a typeface and understand why it exists. One of my designer heroes Marian Bantjes has designed a font called Bernice (I clearly have the extra ‘e’!)

Swiss Typefaces
Swiss International Style is it’s own genre and this foundry take the best of this and translate into beautiful font fonts. NewPanam Skyline is a stylish alternative to traditional serif fonts - check out the descender on the ‘g’.

Village
This is a collective of global designers and foundries so you’ll find a lot of creative inspiration on this site. I love Beatrice (and Display) for something different, and Radio. The site also shows each typeface in use which gives context and inspiration.

Inspiration

Fonts in Use
A large collection of fonts in the wild.

Incredible Types
Mostly print based, this site has a good collection of typography.

Typeverything
Gorgeous hand lettering ideas.

Friends of Type
A source of inspiration for all things type.

Typewolf
A mammoth site with endless knowledge.

Find that font!

These resources can be limited as they tend to be created by foundries and the search is through their library alone. If you don’t get a good match on one, try another.

Books on typography

I’ve supplied links to independent bookshops where possible. Try Hive if you’re based in the UK.

The Complete Typographer
Will Hill was my lecturer on my MA at the Cambridge School of Art and I often refer to this book.

The Elements of Typographic Style
The best book by far for learning about typography.

Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students
Ellen Lupton’s beginner’s guide to typography, also check out Type on Screen.

Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works
Erik Spiekermann is something of a hero to many graphic designers. I struggled to find a link to this great book that wasn’t Amazon! Worth tracking down.

Why Fonts Matter
By Sarah Hyndman, founder of Type Tasting (recommended!)