Many of you have read my ‘Design Essentials: Typography’ download, so will know about typographic design basics and how best to use the typefaces that come installed with your computer (if not, you can ). But what if you want to delve further, and source some really unusual typefaces? Where do you find them? There are a number of options you can try.
Sign up for relevant updates
The ‘big’ font houses all have their own email updates. Two of the best are the Linotype Font Magazine (with a newsletter sign up at the bottom of the page if you’d like more of the same in your inbox) and MyFonts Rising Stars which is published monthly, and showcases popular new fonts. Visit this page to subscribe.
Look at ‘Hot New Fonts’
If you don’t want to subscribe to anything, visit the ‘Hot New Fonts‘ website page. This features all the latest MyFonts typefaces (which you can buy from here). When you find a typeface you like, you can click on it to go to a page where you can try out your own text.
Identify fonts
If you see a typeface you really like, take a photo of it and identify it either by using Identifont (which I talk about in this blogpost) or the What the Font app.
See what’s in DaFont
If you have no budget, go to the Dafont website. There are some real shockers on here, but a few very good typefaces. You can choose your typeface here by category too, for example serif, stencil, script etc.
Save your resources
When I find a typeface I like, and feel I might be able to use it in future commissions, I save it on to my Pinterest Typography board. Then, when a new project starts, I flick through to my shortlist and select the most suitable ones.
If you have any tips about where to source unusual typefaces, do let me know and I will share with my readers.
About the author
Annette Peppis leads the team at Peppis Designworks, a creative hub of established publishing industry experts who create books, branding, marketing material and design templates for leading publishers and businesses. Keep in touch by to her bi-monthly emails.
