Trapped home during the Coronavirus outburst of March 2020 the Zetafonts team found some solace from the world-wide anxiety by designing letters for the #36daysoftype challenge. To fight dark thoughts and spread some good karma we decided to add a free font twist, selecting the best glyphs drawn to develop a collection of ten free typefaces for download. We did our best to make this little gift to the community valuable, though developed in record time: although playful and excessive, these typefaces all stem from our current research in contemporary trends and historical design solutions, bridging calligraphy and design. The typefaces have been published daily starting Monday, March 30. You can download and use the typefaces in any way you desire, as they are totally free for commercial and non-commercial use. We are not asking anything back, but feel free to share the good karma and, if you want, please consider a donation for hospitals.

True North is back but now in a distressed version and new styles! True North Textures is a vintage typeface with 18 fonts and a monoline script. True North Textures comes with distressed labels, extras and free banners. Extras include wild animals, catchwords, numbers, mountains, symbols, tools, leaves and trees. True North Textures is a headline font with alternate capitals. Combine all 18 styles with the script, banners, labels and extras and you get a wonderful distressed vintage design.

Mimix is designed especially for comic fans and all typographers who like to play. It’s ideal to express spontaneity and the joy of life. Where Mimix is used, there’s life. The characters are lined in a row, a face looks out from the page. Big ears surround an oval head. A mouse moves without haste, but dynamic and modern through the lines. Mimix skillfully combines the elegance of a modern roman with the spontaneity of a casual handwriting. The mouse shows its versatile character in its broad range of use. Without exaggeration, it’s always delicate and elegant. The quiet form and good readability is a result of its moderate inclination. Well developed, Mimix includes ten weights from Ultrathin through Black. The free trial pack includes two weights with a reduced number of glyphs. If you like it you will be then be able to buy the fonts itself complete with ligatures, special characters for Eastern European languages, uppercase, lining and old style figures as well as fractions and different Opentype features. Declare war on desert lead – with Mimix, those with charm. Download a free trial version of Mimix with a reduced character set. Check it out!

Lualaba Snake is a bold display font, characterized by the snake-like decoration used in each letter. The design of the font was inspired by the legend of the Lualaba River in Central Africa. Snakes enjoy a special status in Africa, as they are reputed to be messengers of the ancestors, and are therefore good. Near the Lualaba river is a pool in which a big snake called Kabwe lives. Our ancestors are thought to communicate through this snake.

Here’s a fresh take on a classic, Caslon Black Swash by Ed Benguiat. Big, bold and beautiful, it’s a natural choice for distinctive and attractive headlines. Several alternate lowercase characters are included in the font, in place of some math operators. The PC Postscript, Truetype and Opentype versions contain the complete Latin language character set (Unicode 1252) plus support for Central European (Unicode 1250) languages as well.

Another entry in the trusty old "Schriftatlas" named Phoenix—original source and designer unknown—provided the inspiration for this bouncy bit of alphabetical tomfoolery. Its animated typeforms, definitely retro chic, will put some bounce in the step of any headline it graces. Both versions of the font include complete Latin 1252, Central European 1250 and Turkish 1524 character sets, with localization for Moldovan, Romanian and Turkish

Inspired by that iconic sign in the Hollywood Hills, this font is a must for film buffs, movie lovers and designers who want to bring a bit of big screen glamour to their projects. It’s a caps only face, but by using the upper and lower case keys type can be set above or below the base line, thus creating the signature stagger effect. See also Jazz Age and Tea Dance by Studio K

Gobble gobble gobble! The Gobbler font was drawn with a leaky pen on a napkin at the Modern Cafe in Northeast Minneapolis while the designer, Mister Chank Diesel, was waiting for some pot roast. “Apple cobbler drippings on the napkin add more character to the strokes of each letter,” says Chank. This font was originally named Modern Napkin, a free font released in 1997. Chank completed the character set, fixed some curves, and cleaned up some of the apple cobbler to make a more elegant font in 1999. Gobbler works great for either text or display purposes.

Odisseia: Monospaced Typeface Made on Earth by Plau. Plau presents Odisseia, a monospace type family in 8 styles designed with simplicity of shapes and a humanist touch. We’ve ventured into monospace territory, where all letters must occupy the same amount of space. This style is usually associated with typewriters and computer terminal fonts. Like all monospaced fonts, every letter align vertically in a multi-line setting. The rhythm created is peculiar, since large letters such as m and w occupy the same space as narrow ones like i. Because we have 4 different weights: light, regular, bold and black the design of some characters have to be adapted to fit the same width and achieve a constant light/dark value throughout. These features make Odisseia suitable for a specific yet considerable range of uses, from computer coding to systemized communication such as brand identities. This style has been used from high-end brand identity to cutting edge digital applications. Odisseia sets a little shorter in comparison with other monospaced fonts, and bears a large x-height.

Hieroglyphs were a pictorial alphabet used in Ancient Egypt from 3100 BC to approximately 300 AD. This font set features over 250 different phonetic and decorative hieroglyphics, complete with an extensive translation chart. P22’s Hieroglyphic font adapts one of the world’s most ancient forms of art and communication for today’s technology. Note: This is not an automatic word translator. It is a font set. It is used just like any other font and does not require special software skills.

Reliant is a free interpretation of the classic design from fonts "BernhardSchoenschrift", originally designed by Lucien Bernhard and "Liberty", designed by W.T. Sniffin for ATF in 1927, following the original designs from Lucien Bernhard. This enhanced OpenType version has complete sets in Greek and Latin alphabet with Central European, Vietnamese, Baltic and Turkish complete resources with all diacritic signs and punctuation marks plus extra characters belonging this ranges. A Cyrillic alphabet completes the font, and we thanks to Dmitry Greshnev from Green Type. He help us to fix our original Cyrillic alphabet to the Cyrillic readers. We added a extensive set of ligatures (stylistic and contextual alternates plus discretionary ligatures) providing a lot of letterform variations that make your design really special, plus swashes and tails ornaments (to artistic increase any letter of this font) more fractions and number ligatures (a strange idea from Iza W). Over 800 glyphs which you have total access using software such as InDesign, Illustrator, QuarkXpress and others.

Linotype Schwennel is part of the Take Type Library, selected from the contestants of Linotype’s International Digital Type Design Contests of 1994 and 1997. This prize-winning font was designed by the German artist Svenja Voss. The figures seem to have been somehow eroded, parts of some strokes are completely missing, contours seem washed away. The eye works to put the pieces together to form a meaningful series of figures. The second weight, lila+negro, completes the letter fragments of the lila weight. Missing pieces are filled in and contours completed, making the resulting text stronger and a bit more legible. Linotype Schnwennel is intended exclusively for headlines in larger point sizes.

Printers Drawer JNL continues building on a library of letterpress illustrations, cartoons, ad builders, Art Deco ad panels, ornaments, embellishments, and general miscellany. The images are re-drawn from vintage source material, and this font is jam-packed with 89 images spread throughout most all of the standard keyboard positions. This is officially the 1000th release from Jeff Levine Fonts since its inception in January of 2006. Jeff Levine Fonts aims to preserve the almost-lost artwork and lettering styles of the past within a digital type format, and often recreates the designs complete with their evident flaws, idiosyncrasies and eccentricities; allowing for a “real world” and nostalgic look to the computer generated art projects of today.

Introducing HEXA’s second family-font, Retro Games Font. The RetroGames font is a witty reinterpretation of the fonts found in 90s 16-bit games that we enjoyed when we were young, presented as bitmap imaged fonts. It offers superior legibility and aesthetic sensibility compared to many other existing bitmap fonts. For instance, while most bitmap fonts create one stroke with 1 pixel or have various thicknesses in pixels, we have standardized it to a maximum of one stroke with 1-3 pixels, enhancing both legibility and aesthetic appeal. Since there are many similar bitmap fonts, we wanted to reinterpret it as a genre of its own. Our latest designed fonts HEXA, we noticed some shortcomings in legibility, and we aim to address those shortcomings in this bitmap font, Retro Games. Our RetroGames font, which brings back memories of our analog past, can be a valuable design element in many design works." ※ RetroGames is Latin-based and a completely crafted font that consists of 2 typefaces. Each typeface contains 195 sets of characters. This font family is in all-caps fonts. ※The font family includes 'Dropline' and 'Black.' 'Dropline' comes with a shadow effect, while 'Black' is designed without a shadow for simplicity." ※RetroGames is a monospaced fonts. So kerning is not applied.

The powers of the SparkyType and PizzaDude combine to bring a font straight from the future. Nine Thousand is dripping with computer energy and robotic precision.

The powers of the SparkyType and PizzaDude combine to bring a font straight from the future. Nine Thousand is dripping with computer energy and robotic precision.

Wordmark is our new fully equipped branding tool. Designed with a refreshed humanist style, much loved by brands that need to deliver their message in a serious way, with a current look. Drawn by the cool eye of Gaspar Muñoz, expect this font to be as good or even better than its predecessor "Herokid". "Wordmark" is super complete; it includes condensed, thin, expanded, and heavy weights plus italics with two complementary systems that work together in a powerful way. "Wordmark Normal" offers great readability for text and signage, big or small. And "Wordmark Display", designed with a noticeably taller X height specifically made for headlines, big windows, and big screens. With 48 different styles keep it simple and make reliable designs with "Wordmark".

The specimen book Alphabete: ein Schriftatlas von A bis Z identified the pattern for this typeface as Stymie Black Flair. Although neither the designer nor the original foundry is identified, it bears a strong resemblance to the work of Dave West for Photolettering in the 60s and 70s. Big, beautiful and bodacious, it’s a natural choice for attention-grabbing headlines. Many alternate characters available: see the full character map. The PC PostScript, TrueType and OpenType versions contain the complete Latin language character set (Unicode 1252) plus support for Central European (Unicode 1250) languages as well.

Introducing RETRO-86 - A modern take on old-school computer graphic fonts. RETRO-86 was inspired by the low-resolution computer graphics of the 1970s, 80s, and 90s seen in classic games and on computer screens and interfaces. RETRO-86 features a beautifully limited, blocky design and is perfect for projects relating to the tech industry, the gaming world, and nostalgic work from the late 20th century. RETRO-86 is also a hyper versatile typeface. It comes in 2 complementary styles (regular, and shadow) and features 8 weight options each!

»Brute Sans« is a classic Sans typeface that looks like it has been designed by a chainsaw. »Brute Sans« looks really crude only in big sizes, the smaller the font gets the more it looks like any other Sans typeface. »Brute Sans« prints very fast, because there are no curves to compute, but that is just a side effect. »Brute Sans« is the typeface you should use if you need a really different look, since Sans typefaces tend by design to look very similar. This one is different. I always wanted to do this font, but then other projects crept up so I pushed »Brute Sans« to the end of the line. Enjoy!

State Machine is a display typeface inspired by lettering applied to American and Russian Cold War-era military vehicles. It also features an alternate character set inspired by 1970s hand-made political banners. The name State Machine is a term found in both political theory and computer programming. The theoretical definition describes the political and bureaucratic organisation of a state as well as the repressive state apparatuses such as the military and police. Max Weber describes the state as "a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory". In computer programming, a state machine is a mathematical model of computation used to design computer programs. It is conceived as an abstract machine that is in one of a finite number of states. It can change from one state to another when initiated by a triggering event or condition. Taken at a wider conceptual level, when these two definition are combined the meaning becomes analogous to a tool (such as a philosophical idea) with which to transform a society.

Somewhat extravagant and yet quite useful? Yes, absolutely. Meet Salted family: two awesome styles and a way cool picture font. Deliberately free-spirited, Salted – the Regular, yet regular is not quite an appropriate adjective for it – brings alternates and also discretionary ligatures that completely transform the font mood, adding unexpected touches of cursive script here and there and thus creating sort of a wild feel. Salted Sweet also brings alternates: 3 for letters, 2 for digits, and is way more even-tempered than it’s playmate. By the way, they play truly nice together. Enter the picture font and the team is complete for an exciting time. It’s said that the cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea. We totally agree. Perhaps the cure for a boring design lies in a salted font. Give it a go!

Introducing Blonden: A condensed sans-serif font that fuses modernity with streamlined efficiency. Blending style and compactness, Blonden brings a dynamic edge to any design. Experience the sleek versatility of Blonden's condensed form, perfect for making bold statements in tight spaces. This typeface is ideal for greeting card, packaging, brand identity, poster, or any purpose to make your design project look eye catching and trendy. Feel free to play with this typeface!

Now Appearing JNL is a digital version of some hand-lettering spotted on an early 1960s ad for a Miami Beach night club. Its fun, casual appearance makes it perfectly suitable for any project that conveys a relaxed atmosphere. The font was intentionally not kerned, so the free-flowing form of the lettering is at its best, but it can be set tight by hand if a more compact look is desired.