This post is show & tell for the best sites to buy high quality fonts and what I like about each site! Bonus — some of the sites can help you learn more about typography.
For now, bookmark this info and come back to it when you need to find the perfect font. When you have time to explore, come back, click on the links and learn some cool things about type.
Fortunately for us, font files take up a lot less room than clothes and don’t require their own closet so we can collect them like there’s no tomorrow! True, they can get unwieldy and it’s hard to find what you’re looking for sometimes, but it you have it in your library and are somewhat organized, the right one will eventually reveal itself.
- When you need that super polished, fancy script for a swanky invitation, where do you look?
- When you need a classic serif for a corporate brochure, where do you look?
- When you need a breezy script for a package design, where do you look?
- When you need a vintage-looking script for a logo design, where do you look?
The first step in being prepared for anything is building that library. I hope I’m not telling you something shocking here, but sometimes you just need to pay for the good stuff if you want to look good. There, I said it!
In this post I offer 4 sites to buy awesome fonts. To download all of them for free (plus a couple more not available here), click the graphic below.
Stay tuned for links to font sites, but first, a brief story about young designer Sheri:
Back in the day, when I was a young designer, Adobe was the big kahuna font seller on the block. That’s changed over the years and they’ve moved toward a font subscription service called Typekit. Meh, I’m not talking about that here.
This is about where to go to find the goods. Adobe made a lot of kickass popular fonts back in the ‘80s, ‘90s and into this very millennium. I paid attention to new additions to the Adobe library very closely and thought if Adobe was selling it, it must be good! That’s mostly true. Today, Adobe doesn’t even sell its own typefaces! You’ll need to go elsewhere to get them. Like Fontspring (in the list below).
Protip: I did not actually buy most of my terribly expensive Adobe typefaces as typefaces. I bought Adobe Illustrator back when it came on 3.5” plastic discs (haha, now you know how old-school and well, just old, I am) and later on CD; they were kind enough to include most of their type library on the disc. Those faces would have cost thousands back then, but I got them free with purchase. Woot! If you can get your hands on an old Illustrator installation disc, see what you can find.
This post (part 2) covers where to get fabulous paid fonts!
Part 1 covers where to get FREE fonts.
Part 3 covers the best bargain and deal sites.
OK, let’s get started …
Paid fonts site: Font Spring
This is an addictive site with some typeface graphics front and center for some bargains. If you want to start building a nice typeface library, do it at 80% off, yo!
- Clear colors for font lists, best sellers and what’s new
- List includes fresh & hot, free, on sale and picks
- This site has legit fonts, not cheap knock-offs
- Nice detail pages for each type family
- Options to buy the whole family or individual weights
- You can type in your custom text and see what it looks like in any font
Paid fonts site: Font Shop
This is a bold, good-looking site what shows type in action, so to speak. It has several fun graphics highlighting different faces.
- Huge search box at the top if you know what you’re looking for
- Big, easy navigation for new, sale and free
- Slider at top highlights fonts
- Detail pages are spacious and fun to look at
- Bestselling fonts and special deals get their own sections on the home page
Paid fonts site: Fonts.com
This site has a lot going on. Hang in there! If you want to search, it’s top and center. The slider at the top does a great job highlighting different fonts in a fun graphic format.
- Long list of foundries on the home page (the companies that design the fonts)
- Short list of featured fonts on far right
- Nice graphic grid of best sellers
- Nice detail page with option to enter your own text instead of the quick brown fox yada yada
- Reasonable prices
Paid fonts site: Linotype
Linotype and Monotype are two venerable old typeface peddlers. They were around way before digital desktop type! They have converted their whole type libraries to digital and added more to them.
- Nice large graphic at top showing off several faces
- Large sections for best sellers, deals and new releases
- Type designer interviews — these folks are really into type!
- Cool “Browse fonts” link in main navigation, showing fonts by inspiration for whatever project you have, categorized by celebration, poster, western, blackletter, etc.
Are we done yet??
Would you believe I have more to recommend, but don’t want to knock you over with this stuff, so I’ve put these and the others in a nice PDF you can download for free by following that big graphic below. The PDF has links to all the sites. So get the PDF and keep it in a handy place for the next time you need that perfect retro font, or handwritten font, or techno font, or …
Do you love a good typeface as much as you love a good reposed tequila, or is that just me? What are your favorite paid sources for fonts?Comment below with your go-tos. I’m always anxious to check out new font sites 🙂