SCABs

Rating my Fonts

If you come to the School of Communication Arts, expect your search history to be bombarded with complete randomness. One week I’ll be watching vlogs about the Radford Family, the next week I may be investigating the link between mathematic ability and sex drive or perhaps taking a deep dive into the UK’s cat obesity epidemic (riveting stuff by the way). Asides from the weekly additions to my eclectic search history, I have also gained an extensive collection of fonts, which is practically overflowing at this point.

I thought I’d rate my top 5 that I have scoured from the Interweb, without further ado here we go.

At #5 we have Feather Bold. Yes, that is the Duolingo font. Despite being traumatised by this brief during D&AD New Blood, I ironically really like this font and its “bubbliness”. It’s a sans-serif font meaning it doesn’t have the flicky bits you see on fonts like Times New Roman and Merriweather; it feels playful and very kid-friendly, I have an uncontrollable urge to squish it, it’s fun and cute.

Next up at #4, we have Thin Toon Outlines. I can’t quite remember the situation I used this in but I like the way it looks hand-drawn, would be quite good for a comic or a zine perhaps? I can definitely see this font being used for a back-to-school sale advert or for Paperchase, which makes me excited as I am an absolute fiend for stationary (you should see my pastel highlighter collection it is ridiculous). 

A quick caveat… I just found out that Paperchase is ceasing trading online and in-store which has ruined my day, now what am I to do with all those clubcard points I collected? At least I can justify buying a new pencil case and notebook now… Right, back to fonts.

At #3 we have Copystruct. It’s creepy and gives pure salad-fingers vibes which I love, the perfect font for anything eerie and a bit odd, which in my case, is most cases. The pitfalls of this font, however, are that a LOT of tracking and kerning needs to be done. You have been warned.

Getting excited now what’s at #2? Aaaaandddd it’s 215000E, C-3PO’s long distance creative cousin in font form. I like this font mostly because it’s quite punky and reminds me of the ransom letters in movies. I like it even more because I used it in a Tommee Tippee pitch.

Here we go, the countdown is finally over. At #1 we have SK Femme Fatale (Trial). I love the feminine and withcy energy this font exudes, at first I wasn’t a fan when my creative partner chose this for our portfolio, but I must say it has grown on me quite a lot since. It’s great for titles and little words, not so great for long copy. I enjoy decorative fonts but be warned, they are not to be used for long copy otherwise you will get a big bollocking.

Don’t even like this font that much it just gets bonus points for being called “Long Haired Freaky People”.

To finish off my ratings, here’s an extensive list of font resources for my fellow typeface enthusiasts:

https://www.dafontfree.net

https://www.fontsquirrel.com

https://www.awwwards.com/inspiration_search/?text=free%20fonts

https://beautifulwebtype.com

http://velvetyne.fr

http://ohnotype.co 

https://www.behance.net/?tracking_source=typeahead_search_direct&search=free+fonts

https://newlyn.com

https://fontstruct.com

https://www.typography.com

https://www.emigre.com/

http://underware.nl 

http://fontsinuse.com 

@anniewisbeyy

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