Pick Fonts

Google Fonts

With Google Fonts, you can download fonts for free and use them in your projects as you see fit. Since the only way to get custom typefaces on iOS is to download and import the font files, the download option is very useful. There are at least two great fonts: Open Sans and Roboto, which are used by default in modern Android phones.

Typekit

Typekit is part of the Creative Cloud subscription and has a wealthy selection of great fonts. It’s perfect for those who are starting. Great fonts that I enjoy include: Proxima Nova, Museo, Adelle Sans and Brandon Grotesque.

Fontstand

The great thing about Fontstand for Mac is that you can try fonts for 1 hour before purchasing them. Also, instead of buying the fonts, you rent them for a fraction of the price per month.

Fonts.com

For a monthly subscription, fonts.com lets you use as many fonts as you want. It has the largest selection by far. Fonts.com also allows you to self-host the font files, meaning you can download and host them on your server.

Good Type Foundry

Good type foundry provides access to a number of typefaces that you can use in your digital products as well as printed products. These also include some amazing custom typefaces. Before making a purchase, you have the option to test the typefaces.

Latinotype

Latinotype has numerous typefaces divided into categories, some of which are available for free. They also provide special offers from time to time so you can get these at a discounted prices.

Finding Fonts

In the above sections, we went through some really amazing resources you can use to select and download fonts. Now, what about when you come across a font on a website or an application that you really love but you don't know the name of. There are resources available that you can install that will help you find a font, some of these are:

WhatTheFont

On WhatTheFont, you can search over 130,000 fonts to find the one you're looking for. You can either download this as an app or head over to their website to upload an image containing the font.

What Font Is

This application works the same way as well. Additionally, they also have a pro membership option which gives you access to additional features.

Body Text

Pick a font that looks good in the body text. When in doubt, pick one that is both clean and comfortable to read. San Francisco, Helvetica Neue, Open Sans, Roboto, Proxima Nova and Museo Sans are some of my favorites. They’re all available for free on Google Fonts and Typekit (with Creative Cloud account).

Resources

Typography is an art form that is worth exploring. It goes well beyond iOS. When you've reached a level where you can call your craft Art, that is the biggest achievement that you can get.

Typography Guide

If you'd like to learn more about combining typefaces, apostrophes, quotes, dashes and brackets, I suggest heading to typogui.de.

A five minutes guide to typography

A real treat to read. Smartly designed to give you time to stop and think about each point. It’s also cleverly animated to make a better impact.

How to identify fonts

It might have happened, that you found an interesting font, you took a photo and then wondered how to add it to your design? With WhatTheFont you can find the name of the font or some similar options.

In the Figma file, you will find an icon and next to it the text that we will replace. We are using SF Pro Display, Heavy, 72 points but the goal is to replace it with a new font from the photo.

Note: For this example I will use Osnova Small Caps Std Bold font. If you dont have it, dont worry. You can understand the exercise and try to recreate the example with your own sources.

Go to WhatTheFont and let's upload the photo from the exercise file. WhatTheFont will scan the picture and it will try to recognize all the different characters in the photo.

Once it finishes scanning, you will see a cropping zone appear. The area that you will choose will help the web app to understand which characters you want to identify. Finally, click on the arrow button so the web app can suggest you some options.

After finishes scanning, you will see next to the photo a list of possible matches for the font and links to where to buy those fonts.

For this case, I will go with Osnova Small Caps Std Bold because it has a similar Q. If you don't have the font you can purchase it from the MyFonts site.

Fortunately, I have the font in my OS so I will select the text and change it to it. Voila! You were able to change the font of your design from an inspiration your found in your surroundings.

Conclusion

Although there are tons of resources out there when it comes to selecting fonts. Always make sure to select the font depending on how readable they are. It's best to pair a couple of fonts than to have way too many fonts in a single design.