Do you love typography? How would you like to get expensive fonts for free?..

Do you love typography? How would you like to get expensive fonts for free?..

Posted by legacye in Home on 04 1st, 2009 | one response

Hey guys. Let’s face it – not every budding designer can afford to pay the sometimes overpriced cost of new typeface fonts, especially when times are so hard.

Whilst many font-design agencies try to keep prices below £30/$30, a quick visit to linotype.com will show you that some of those snazzy Web 2.0 fonts you see new start-up companies using are a little better than what you can find for free..that..and they come at a higher cost (almost 2-3 times the price!) – Crazeh. So what do you do when you want to use a font without buying the full package? Well…just use the sample feature on the host site.

I’m not condoning this outright – if you’re well funded and can afford to pay the full price, go for it, but if not just hit ‘Sample’ or ‘Try me’ and type away. Most of the text you generate can be edited later in Fireworks or Photoshop to add gradients or glass effects and for once off usage, it should be just fine.

Here’s some text I generated using the expensive “Bella” font currently featured on Linotype.

and here’s the same text jazzed up a little with some simple glass effects (use a gradient and the hard mix filter) as well as a light glow (the wand tool + a 2px glow).

Give it a go yourself ;)

Btw, for those who would rather not swim in these waters, why not try out WhatTheFont.com which allows you to find fonts similar to those you’ve seen online.