Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

Filed under: web_development

Identifont identifies fonts by description, partial name or sample

http://www.identifont.com/

-- Shared with Google Share Button

If you work with the web, you work with fonts, it's that simple.  Along with graphics, fonts carry a tremendous amount of emotiveness.  Choosing the right font can make or break that feel you want for your site.

Unfortunately, fonts aren't easy to deal with.  First of all, there's a zillion of them.  Additionally, once you find one you want, it's usually one you have to buy!  All those fonts don't come cheap.

So, what's there to do?  Unfortunately, I haven't found a way to get the web to tell me "what's a free font that looks like this commercial one?".  However, you can describe the characteristics of the font you want to the Identifont service, and it will give you a list of similar fonts, some of which *may* be free.  It requires a bit of elbow grease and it's not 100% successful, but I *have* been able to find free font substitutes for the ones I've wanted by using it.

If you're just looking for the name of a font that you have in a graphic, you can use Identifont or the also excellent WhatTheFont! service at http://new.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/, part of MyFonts.