The best totally free web fonts & typefaces

by Tobias van Schneider
Published May 11, 2020

Quality, free web fonts are difficult to come by these days. The best place we could think to find them: Twitter.

Beautiful typefaces are usually an investment, but that doesn't mean you can't find affordable ones. I recently asked for recommendations on Twitter for completely free typefaces, and there was no shortage of options.

Here we curated our top 12 picks, along with a few honorable mentions. Thanks to those who shared their secrets!

Space Grotesk

Florian Karsten is an independent type foundry with high-quality custom typefaces. Space Grotesk is designed as a grotesque modified version of Colophon's open-source typeface, Space Mono.

DOWNLOAD SPACE GROTESK

Geomanist

Atipo, founded by Raúl García del Pomar & Ismael González, is an independent type foundry and graphic design studio based in Gijón, Spain. Geomanist is a beautifully simple, geometric typeface.

DOWNLOAD GEOMANIST

Archia

Another beautiful typeface created by atipo foundry. Archia is a square, sans-serif typeface with the charm of pure form.

DOWNLOAD ARCHIA

Jost*

Owen Earl designed Jost* as a tribute to Futura, as a functional and modern typeface for the digital era.

DOWNLOAD JOST

AUTHENTIC Untitled

Daniel Stettner is a multi-disciplinary designer who created many AUTHENTIC typefaces. AUTHENTIC Untitled is a blackletter typeface with plenty of character.

DOWNLOAD AUTHENTIC

Bonkers

Fabian Korn is a creative director at Format Studio based in Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Bonkers is a funky, lighthearted typeface.

DOWNLOAD BONKERS

Miki

Kontrapunkt is a brand experience agency based in Denmark and Japan. Their Miki typeface is inspired by Kontrapunkt's Japanese connections, with smooth, playful curves.

DOWNLOAD MIKI

Inria

Black Foundry is a type design company based in France. Their Inria typeface comes as both a modern serif and a humanist sans-serif.

DOWNLOAD INRIA

Messapia

Collletttivo is a group of designers designing and distributing free open-source typefaces. Their headline-worthy Messapia type family comes with two styles: one inspired by an old 19th-century font, the other a sans-serif bold extended.

DOWNLOAD MESSAPIA

Emberly

UX designer Rajesh Rajput created this Didone-inspired typeface, which looks lovely in any weight.

DOWNLOAD EMBERLY

Public sans

Developed by U.S Web Design System (USWDS)

USWDS is an active open source community of government engineers, content specialists and designers. Public Sans is a strong, neutral typeface for interfaces, text and headings.

DOWNLOAD PUBLIC SANS

Inter

Rasmus, a Swedish designer working at Figma, created the instantly popular Inter font family as a legible text for computer screens.

DOWNLOAD INTER

Honorable mentions

Space Mono

Colophon Foundry is an international award-winning type foundry based in London and Los Angeles. Inspired by science fiction, the Space Mono typeface family has a geometric foundation and grotesque details.

DOWNLOAD SPACE MONO

IBM Plex

Plex was designed as a corporate font for IBM to honor its spirit and history. It's a neutral, yet friendly Grotesque-style typeface that includes a Sans, Sans Condensed, Mono and Serif for print and digital.

DOWNLOAD IBM PLEX

Fengardo Neue

Velvetyne Type Foundry designs and distributes open source typefaces. Fengardo Neue, to quote the foundry's site, "bears the marks of uneven and restless learning." It's a legible sans with a bit of softness and charm that makes it unique.

DOWNLOAD FENGARDO NEUE

Thank you to our intern, Man-Ping Wu, for curating these typefaces and creating feature graphics for each of them. We hope these free typefaces are helpful to your projects.

If you're looking for beautiful new typefaces for your collection (and don't mind paying for them) be sure to also check out Semplice's favorite type foundries and typefaces. They're worth every penny.