Fonts with open source licenses
I started a new open source project the other day, and wondered where—other than Google Fonts—I might find fonts for inclusion in a permissive public repo. Here's a list of resources I found for font files released with the SIL Open Font License (OFL):
Curated resources
- The League of Movable Type
- Open Foundry
- Use & Modify
- Heck, just take a scroll through Frederic Brodbeck's Are.na collection
Larger libraries
- Font Library
- Font Squirrel "open" category
- Kyle A Matthews typefaces repo: this is a collection of NPM packages to self-host fonts from the Google Fonts collection and beyond. I haven’t done an exhaustive review of available typefaces, but at time of writing there's > 1000 packages here so…a great jumping off point for finding more options.
Combining licenses in one project
#iAmNotALawyer, but I imagine I'll munge together licenses within one license.txt file: specifying/including the SIL license first for any relevant font files, and MIT for everything else.
Giving back to open source
The fantastic thing about open source is that it is free and open, and helps foster creativity within the community. Writing code, designing typefaces, and making other open source contributions takes real human time, though, so whichever typefaces I go with, I’ll seek out a tip jar for the type designer(s). 👍