About Fontlog

For years I set every project in Bricolage Grotesque. Not because I'd compared it against anything — it just looked right, and picking a font is the kind of small decision that quietly eats an evening. Every few months I'd go looking for something new, bounce between a dozen tabs of specimens, licenses I couldn't parse, and install instructions that assumed I was buying a desktop license, and give up.

Fontlog is the thing I wanted instead: a short, opinionated list of open-license typefaces I've actually used or seriously evaluated. Not a directory of everything — Google Fonts already does that. Every entry here is one I'd ship.

How a font gets in

I've used it on a real project, or I've sat with it long enough to have a genuine opinion. That's the whole bar. If it's here, there's a reason, and the note on its page says what it is — including what to watch out for.

What's on each page

• A live preview you can type your own text into.
• The license in one plain-English sentence, with a link to the real thing.
• Copy-paste install snippets: npm / Fontsource, next/font, Google Fonts, and a self-host template.
• Real sites using the font, when I've found good ones.
• A “best for” list — the kinds of site the font suits, with a reason for each.
• A few “if you like this, try” pointers.

The tags

Every font has a classification (sans, serif, mono, display) and one or more moods — geometric, humanist, grotesque, neo-grotesque, warm, brutalist, editorial, technical, quirky, retro, elegant, or friendly. They're deliberately vague, because “I want something warmer” is usually how the search actually starts. Use the filters on the home page to narrow things down.

Separately, most fonts carry a “best for” list — Product UI, Marketing sites, Developer tools, Documentation, Code, Blog & newsletter, Portfolio & personal — describing the job the typeface does rather than how it feels. Every one of those tags has to come with a reason on the font's page; a claim I can't justify in a sentence doesn't get made. They're judgement calls, not rules: plenty of good typefaces work far outside the boxes I've put them in.

Everything is open

Every typeface listed is free for commercial use under an open license (mostly the SIL Open Font License). No paid fonts, no affiliate links. The catalogue is small on purpose — 5 right now — and grows only when I find something worth adding.