Everyone loves a pretty blog and it's becoming easier and easier to dress up your site and your images with the plethora of free fonts that are available out there.
Many of you may not realize that fonts are just like photos, books, and songs and have licenses for usage. For a long time, the internet was a boring place from a design perspective and part of the reason why was many of the type foundries couldn't agree on licensing options for designers and site owners! Things have improved greatly over the last few years and there are beautiful paid options out there for your website.
But loads of free font options have started popping up that can make our blog designs much more interesting! The added bonus is, you can also use many of these fonts to add some titles to your Pinterest images, facebook headers, blog headers and more!
But first, a few quick font rules!
Serif or Sans Serif For Your Blog Post Body
We read on-line differently than we do in print. It puts a lot more strain on our eyes to stare at a screen than it does a page. So make it easy for your readers and stick to simple serif or sans serif fonts for the page body and skip the fonts full of flourishes that are hard to read in blocks of text.
What the heck is a Serif or Sans Serif font? Good question!
Serif refers to the "feet" that you see on letters like "p", "m", "t" etc. Times New Roman is a great example of a classic Serif font.
Think back to your French to figure out what Sans Serif fonts are. "Sans" = "without". So Sans Serif fonts have no "feet". Classic examples of Sans Serif fonts are Helvetica and Futura.
Save The Decorative Fonts For Headings, Headers and Flourishes
You can never go wrong using a classic Serif or Sans Serif font for your post and page headings and your <h2> - <h6> tags but, if you want to punch it up a bit, these are great places to have some fun. Try out a decorative or handwritten font in these areas.
Decorative fonts can add a lot of personality - just use them sparingly and in the right places!
Don't Go Font Crazy
Fonts can become part of your blog's identity and branding so keep them consistent, don't change it up too often and don't go crazy with 10 different fonts. There are so many pretty, fun fonts out there that it can be hard to narrow it down to just a few. Practice restraint.
Keep your font selection to two or three: A clean easy to read Serif or Sans Serif font for body text, one decorative font for headings and perhaps a third one for additional type - like your blog tag line.
So, if you're thinking of a little spring refresh, here are some fun free fonts that we're digging right now (links to all fonts are below the graphic)
**some of these fonts are only free for personal use, others require a minimal donation or a paid license for commercial use - always check the usage rights
1. Angelina 2. Blanch, 3. Champagne & Limousines, 4. Creampuff, 5. Dyspepsia, 6. Julius Sans One, 7. Lavendaria, 8. Limelight, 9. Matilde, 10. Metropolis, 11. Mission Script, 12. Open Sans Condensed
Looking For More Great Free Fonts?
Here are some of our favourite places to browse for new fonts! Be careful though - it's easy to get lost in all that font goodness!
- Google Fonts
- Lost Type Co-Op (on behalf of all designers, may I suggest you leave a small donation for any fonts you download from this really awesome type co-op)
- Dafont
- Font Squirrel
- My Fonts (this is generally a paid font service but they often have great freebies and sales - they also have an awesome "what the font" service that helps you identify a font you've fallen in love with but can't find the name of!)
Some of Our Favourite Free Fonts For Dressing Things Up, was written by FBC Editor & Co-Founder, Melissa Hartfiel. By day, Melissa wrangles content for Food Bloggers of Canada while also working as a freelance designer, writer and photographer at her own studio, Fine Lime Designs. She may or may not have a font addiction. By night she writes Eyes Bigger Than My Stomach, her food photography blog. She hangs out in Vancouver with chocolate and her dog, Sam.
Connect with Melissa on Twitter: @mhchipmunk, Pinterest, or Facebook: Eyes Bigger Than My Stomach and Fine Lime Designs.
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