Font Download Services Review

Keeping up in this digitally enhanced print age is getting more and more difficult. Superior print ads, creative logos and clean websites are what set top companies apart from the rest. Having a great typeface to associate with your ads, logos and websites is essential. Enter the hundreds of different font downloading services on the web. Each service guarantees to be the best place to purchase a font online, but how do you know that’s true? We here at TopTenREVIEWS have waded through the selection of font download services and have come up with a side-by-side matrix of 11 different sites, each with their own pros and cons to help you in your search. Most of the font downloading services we reviewed sell and license commercial fonts intended for professional use, but we’ve thrown in a few sites with free fonts as well.

Use our side-by-side matrix to determine at a glance whether visiting a specific font downloading service is worth spending time on their website.

What to Look for When Using an Online Font Downloading Service

Inventory Selection
Specifically designed to tell at a glance which font downloading service has what you need, the inventory selection breaks down each site by whether they carry commercial or free fonts, OpenType or TrueType formats and font libraries or individual fonts. If you are searching for a sans serif font family and a specific font downloading service doesn’t carry those two products, then they aren’t the service for you. Our favorite sites, Fonts.com and MyFonts.com carry thousands of commercial fonts that are professionally designed and aesthetically pleasing. Whether you’re trying to design an ad campaign or wedding invitations, both our top sites will have what you need.

Website Features
The online font service website is your only connection to the product, so it’s essential they have content-rich pages to keep your interest and answer your questions. Some of our favorite website features on our top review sites are listed in the matrix to help draw you to those that stand above the rest. One characteristic that is a must when viewing typefaces online is glyph coverage. Glyph coverage lists in detail every character included in a typeface. Not all fonts come with ampersands, exclamation points or even numbers, so knowing which characters aren’t included is significant. Also, the best font downloading services have a custom preview available when browsing through the fonts where you can enter in a specific line of text to view what it looks like. We were partial to MyFonts’ custom preview, which included an option to change the text, size and color.

Ease of Use
When a website is a company’s digital storefront, it’s important the content be presented in an easy-to-navigate and user-friendly way to make your shopping experience a good one. Purchasing fonts online should be no different. As we rated each online font downloading service, we kept the ultimate search functionality of the site at the forefront of our minds. Finding the perfect font for a project is painless if the typefaces are organized by different methods of categorization. Searching alphabetically, by use and by style were the most important options used by the top sites. If you’re making a newsletter, then being directly pointed to a font specifically designed for a newsletter format is a priceless search option. Adobe Fonts does a really good job of pointing you to a precise font for a particular use.

Help/Support
Purchasing a digital product can be daunting if you aren’t particularity tech savvy, especially if it is up to you to install that product after purchase. This was the main concern we found when researching different questions a user has when purchasing a font online. Be assured, however, that almost every font downloading service we reviewed has detailed instructions on how to download and install their fonts. Some go even as far as to offer toll-free numbers to call for further assistance. FontShop really impressed us with their promised expert, personal service.

To get on top creatively, purchasing a commercial font online is essential and looks much more professional for your image. If you’re still using the standard fonts that came with your computer, it’s time to explore the world of downloadable commercial fonts. You’ll be surprised with the immense selection and talented typeface designers found on font download services. Don’t take our word for it though, check out our individual reviews and read articles on font downloading. At TopTenREVIEWS We Do the Research So You Don’t Have To.™