You may ask yourself why you should buy a font when there are so many free fonts available for download?

Whilst there is nothing wrong with using free fonts for your client projects, one needs to be aware of a couple of the main pitfalls surrounding the use of free fonts, and how to use them appropriately in projects;

1. Licensing: “Hey, great this font is totally free, I can use that for my clients logo design.” Careful; that isn’t necessarily the case.

With every single font or graphic or photograph you want to use in a project, it’s vital to read the license attached to the use of that item - not all licenses are equal.

For instance it’s very common for free fonts to state ‘not for commercial use’ - this means it’s OK to use them on your family website, or for your child’s birthday party invites, but you are prohibited from using them commercially in paid client projects.

Some free fonts really are just that - totally free for all uses, but you will only know for sure by paying attention to the licence before you use them.

2. Quality. Some free fonts are of a very high quality, however it can be the case the the quality is inferior to a paid font and often character sets can be missing.

Missing character set’s aren’t such an issue when you are using the font for a logo design for instance, and you will not be repeating that font throughout the clients literature. But if the logo font is going to be used repeatedly in literature such as brochures and stationery, check that you have all the necessary characters before your bind yourself to it.

If there aren’t sufficient characters, you then have the choice of advising the client they can use a different complimentary font throughout their literature.

Which is why it often pays to use a different paid font for any company logo taglines - this can be the repeating font throughout the literature.

The other option is that they can stump up for a paid font to be used as the main font within their logo design ….with a full character set. Lets face it, fonts aren’t that expensive are they? If you’re client can’t afford a font, I’d personally be worried about their ability to settle their final invoice

3. Reliability. Imagine the scenario - you’ve created a fantastic brand identity for your client and a couple of years passes. They come back to you saying “Hey, what’s the font for my logo, I want to use it in some new marketing materials I’m having created” (lets ignore the fact that they aren’t hiring you for some reason!).

You visit your archives and dig out their file to find out what their font is. You suddenly realise that their font was lost on your machine in your ‘hard drive crash of 2006′.

Hey, no problem you think to yourself, I’ll simply search on Google for it. OH NO!! …..that font isn’t available for download any more.

Ouch, now try and explain this situation to your client.

This nightmarish scenario isn’t likely to happen with a paid font.

Why Use Free Fonts Then?

Personally I find that one can actually observe more creativity in free fonts compared to what is available at paid font libraries.

Take heed of the pitfalls above though….you’ve been warned

Author - Amanda Vlahakis is the designer behind popular logo design & graphic design service Truly Ace Design and Truly Ace Graphic Design Blog. Copyright Truly Ace. All Rights Reserved