Font identification should be super simple in 2020 but it isn’t.
In the era of supercomputers, small prices for software developing, experienced and professional people, and deep collaboration, this domain is still having to eat a bread.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some good solution on the market, but I was expecting much more (maybe is only me ).
My personal explanations for still having difficult times in font identification are these few reasons:
• There are literally tons of fonts, both free and paid. I understand that are close to 1 million fonts in the world.
• New fonts are invented daily, these add on top of the 1 million existing fonts.
• A very small change to an existing font can create a new font. Again, new fonts.
• It is hard for a software to look into a huge database and match perfectly the font you need identified. Sometimes, the variations between fonts are small and hard to tell.
I wrote this article so we can all have (me including) all the solutions for fonts identification. This should be the final and perfect list resource that would be at actual at least in 2020. I promise to update it whenever I find new apps or ideas for font identification.
Table of contents
1.Identify fonts from print (from any picture)
2.Inspect fonts in web pages – Browser extensions
3.Different methods which are more or less efficient
Let’s start with the solutions that we can use to identify fonts from print and any picture.
1.Identify fonts from print (from any picture)
Many times, we need to identify fonts from a given picture. Maybe we need the font for us, or our customer shows us (Hey, I just found this awesome font, please use it. Here is a screenshot of it.) that he wants a specific font for his website or project (marketing materials, landing page, website design, or whatever else).
It happened to me, and for sure you had similar situations.
TIP: use these apps to identify fonts for your new projects. Search pictures with awesome fonts on Dribbble, Pinterest, and other websites for inspiration.
There are many other situations in which we need to identify fonts from pictures. For example I made an experiment and I identified the fonts from over 10 different objects from my private office (awesome attic office) – a BMW R45 motorcycle from 1979, my air conditioner equipment, from a lamp, a DJI Mavic Air drone, a Mercedes diecast truck, and other cool objects.
Finding fonts from pictures is the hardest thing in font identification, even for powerful software.
Here are 4 font finders that will help you identify fonts from pictures, with pluses and minuses for each solution.
WhatFontIs
+It is the only system that identifies both free and paid fonts.
+It has a huge database of over 600k indexed fonts.
+WhatFontIs works with all font foundries, including Google fonts.
+Free to use.
+Efficient, from 10 uploaded pictures, the software identified 7 times perfectly the font I was looking for.
+Each time you identify a font, the software presents you also over 60 free and paid font alternatives.
-Sometimes, even if the picture is great in terms of quality and everything, the software cannot identify the font.
-They show over 60 free and paid font alternatives but some have nothing to do with the identified font.
FontSquirrel
+The software is fast.
+It is easy to use.
+Free.
-From 10 tests, only 4 times the software identified with success the font.
-FontSquirrel presented only 14 fonts while other solution present much more.
-All the presented fonts are only from 2 sources which is pretty weird. Normally, the software should identify fonts from anywhere.
WhatTheFont
+The software is fast.
+It is simple to use.
+Free to use.
-The software wants me to crop the box with the font, even if the picture contains only a font. I uploaded a simple picture for the first test.
-Show more results button – it shows so many results that you start seeing fonts that have 0 in common with the identified fonts.
-Most identified fonts are paid, the other solutions found tens of free fonts that were extremely similar with the identified fonts.
-Not so efficient, sorry guys.
2. Inspect fonts in web pages – Browser extensions
Browser extensions for font identification are the best to use whenever you want to identify fonts from websites.
Most of these solutions work excellent and all of them are free to use.
I use one of these solutions daily to find new fonts for my websites (I am a web designer 80% of my time) and I know perfectly how cool it is to implement a new font in my designs.
Even if all these solutions do the very same thing (identify fonts from websites), there are important differences between them. You will love some features while you will hate others.
Font Identifier by WhatFontIs
+Efficient.
+Easy to use.
+Fast and intuitive.
+You get font alternatives too.
+It helps you identify fonts also from pictures.
+Free.
-Basic font information.
FontsNinja
+Super-efficient.
+Easy to work with.
+You get all the info you need for the identified fonts.
+It is simple to test the font you identified in the app.
+Free.
-I couldn’t find any minuses for this app. If you find one, message me and I will add it here.
WhatFont
+Simple to use.
+Efficient.
+Fast.
+Free.
-It took me 1-2 minutes to understand how to use the app.
-The font cannot be tested inside the app.
3. Different methods which are more or less efficient
Ok, so we have apps to identify fonts from pictures and apps to identify fonts directly from websites. Both are efficient and great to use in specific situations.
But there are also other solutions, more or less efficient.
Identifont – It is also a font identification software that is very different from anything else. You can identify fonts by answering questions about key features, by searching the font name (complete name or only a part), by similarity, by picture, and more.
GoogleFonts – Google fonts is one of my favorite ways to identify fonts. Ok, maybe you will not find out exactly the font you need, but you can easily find similar fonts, that are free and simple to install and use.
Make 2 screens, one for Google fonts webpage, and one that contains the font you want to identify. Play with Google fonts until you manage to identify or at least match 99% the font you want. It works extremely well and I highly recommend you this method.
Typography.guru – Ask the forum for help and they will quickly help you. I used a few times this method and it worked very well.
BowenPrintWorks – This is a font identification guide. You have to pay huge attention to the font details to identify fonts but it works.
Tiff – You can compare fonts and overlay them. This tool can be used in combination with any other tool from this article. It will help you be 100% sure that the font you identified is accurate.
Reddit Identify This Font – Reddit community is quite efficient in identifying complicated fonts that none of the tools presents in this article succeed to identify.
Conclusions
The article was created with the idea to be the most complete and updated resource on font identification. I made tons of tests and tried the apps from all directions, each one being tested 5-10 times with different websites and pictures.
It contains all the solutions that work and that can really help you and me in font identification.
The apps or methods that were not included here, are not efficient.
Top comments (1)
Hi Mike,
Thanks for this article.
We are an advertising agency that go the extra mile and design the landing pages for our customers. Fonts are extremely useful, changing a lot the overall design and performance of the landing page.
I personally know very well some of the included solutions but some are new for me. FontsNinja is my favorite browser extension for font identification.
Cheers