Royalty-Free Free Fonts?

Does anyone know of a good categorized site of royalty-free fonts? I was using 1001freefonts for a while, but their license(at least for the fonts I have downloaded) doesn't allow commercial use.

I am guessing that this is possible with how ubiquitous fonts are, but if not, does anyone have any recommendations for a cheap commercial-use-OK collection?

Google is pretty useless for this search. I might as well be typing in "emoticons" or "clip-art" or "song lyrics."

Thanks in advance.

 

http://www.dafont.com/
this site is really good for free fonts. All the fonts say their licensing (some are free for personal use, some are free for commercial use).

 

What Ben said. It's where I get all of my fonts.

 

The only issue with dafont is that, as a typographer by training and font-freak in general (I have over 2,700 licensed fonts), I have stumbled across the occasional copyright violation here (a commercial font posted). But overall, that's not a bad place.

try also looking at ilovetypography.com ... John will sometimes post links to fabulous free typefaces (exljbris as an example). Also do a search on smashingmagazine as they frequently link to collections of excellent free typefaces.

 

Thanks for this tip. I'm now using all the Larabie fonts.

 

I download 10 fonts from www.dafont.com and other sites.
All fonts are not dynamic, I cant change size in GUISkin.
Please help.

 

Both Dafont and Fontsquirrel are great resources for free fonts. Just make sure the font is not donation-ware or free for personal use.

 

Just to clarify something for you, you can use any font in the world. The only thing that you can't do is redistribute the actual font software (the otf or ttf file). That is software, and the vector file data is covered by copyright law. However, the text that appears in your game is a bitmap representation, and is not bound by copyright.

As to the font size issue; remember that, in the webplayer, you can't have dynamic font sizes. If you want a different size, you have to load another copy of the font with both sizes.

 

Mostly true, but I think you may confusing two distinct issues. (or at least stating it in a way that may be unclear) If you use a font (like any software), you need to/should abide by whatever license is associated with it. Since you are using the software to render images that part is covered by copyright.

But yes, if it is included in a game/software package/etc and the source is not part of that game, then there is no problem using it. Basically the same a creating a magazine or book, you licence the software to create it but none of that software is distributed. If the game uses bitmaps or the font is just part of images than there should be no problem.

However... It has been a sticky subject recently because of web embedding and flash and other apps/programs that include the vector aspect of the face as part of the app. Many commercial faces now include provisions or additional licences to deal with games/apps that store the vector data. Some even account for high resolution bitmaps. And most of the foundries have different licences. Some don't care, some will base fee based how many games you intend to ship (crazy high prices). It can be a pain. Last year we had issues with it, and ended up replacing the fonts in some of our games with ones that had more reasonable licences.

But, that being said, if you aren't including the vector data, and don't allow the user to use the faces to create things (like pdfs, e-cards, etc..), you really don't need to worry. If you are going to be embedding the vectors, or allowing users to create things they can save/share/send, it is worth it to take a few minutes to ensure that the font(s) you are using allow for that. If not, there are many great, inexpensive fonts that have all those rights, as well as free ones.

And if you get the chance, always try to support indie font/type designers, there are some great ones out there.

 

My problem is in Android platfom.
I dont understand yours answer - why I cant change size font i GUIskin?
Because is not to commercial use?



What I have to do to change size font in GUIskin?

Please write simple worlds. Thanks for all reply.



All resizing return the above error and the font does not increase.
Fonts increase only in Unity3D in the preview but in Android phone, tablet is still small, nothing change...

Please help.

 

I use Google. They're all open source and free.

http://www.google.com/fonts/

 

Wow. The last time I looked at Google fonts there were only around a couple of dozen. They have really added a lot more. Some really nice ones in there.

 

If you want to create your own fonts, try using Inkscape to create the glyphs, then create a TrueType font by using a service like Convert Fonts. Convert Fonts is intended for web development, so you'll get some other font formats (Extended Open-Type, WOFF, and an accompanying stylesheet), but the TrueType font will be bundled with it.

 

From google site I download font.
Problem is still the same.

Any sugestion?
Maybe I make it wrong?

 

You can download them by adding any fonts you want to your collection, then click the download button.

 

Hey,I am using an image of a word written by font that does not allow embedding, in unity.Is that any sort of violation?

 

No

 

oooh you can have them in your project and its fine?
i thought Unity, inherently distributed the font file,
, cause, you know, its pretty easy to decompile a unity game into source assets...

(actually, i never done that, so maybe those programs dont work so well? .. i seen programs that do so.. and while they might be "shady" ? i think theyre useful to have and to know about, and itd be foolish to believe they are a 'menace' or some crap)
particularly, i seen a unity game that someone made a decompiler, so as to mod the game..
i come from modding, i wouldnt even believe i have any ability to use Unity, if it wasn't for my experiences with modding various games.

so i thought that was a thing... guess not lol nice to know..
i suppose the compilation protects it, youre not knowingly intending to distribute it...
but like... i know so.. yeah... ???

 

I ran into that issue multiple times at that site looking for a couple of fonts for just one game. The advertised license isn't always the license that comes with the download, which ended up wasting a whole bunch of time.

These are what I've ended up using lately as well. My understanding, from memory, is that these are made, distributed and licensed by Google, so I think I can trust that they're not dodgy rips or falsely licensed fonts from elsewhere. That's a big win for me.

They don't have the variety yet that's available elsewhere, but to be honest that doesn't ruin it for me and it does save a lot of time by making you choose from what's there instead of clicking "next page" all day.

 

I don't think they're all made by google. I recently found one that had a free version on google fonts and a pro version was sold elsewhere. I emailed the author and he said the free version on google is distributed correctly and in fact free, and if you want a more complete character set you can buy the pro version outside of google fonts. So it seems he was kind of using google fonts as a kind of marketing plattform. That diminished my trust in all fonts there being legit ever so slightly because apparently non-google font devs can upload as well and I doubt that the submitted fonts get checked thoroughly for copyright violations, but so far I haven't found an actual violation there.

 

Ahh, good to know. Thanks!

 

http://fontsquirrel.com/ for sure, all free for commercial use.