30 Fonts Perfect for Vintage and Retro Style Design
A Vintage or retro style design is meant to transport it’s audience decades into the past. Designers try to do this by using various design elements such as textures and patterns from a certain time period. But it’s also important to use accurate typography from the time period you are trying to represent.
In this post, we’ve rounded up 30 excellent vintage and retro fonts that you can use in your designs. You’ll notice that these font’s range from a 1920′s look all the way up to the retro typography style of the 50′s.
Matchbook
Bazar, Medium
Embossed Black
Ugly Qua
Hill House
Shrewsbury-Condensed Bold
Caslon
Seaside Resort
Fontleroy Brown
Fusty Saddle
Dirty Ames
Bolton
Dymaxion
Just Old Fashion
Riesling
Goudy Bookletter 1911
Opera-Lyrics-Smooth
Carnivalee Freakshow
Circus Ornate
Upper East Side
Brandon Grotesque Regular (free until April 15)
Ballpark
East Market
BP Script
Rocket Script
Arwen
Anagram
Louisianne
Lemon Chicken
Anastasia
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34 comments
Matthew Heidenreich
March 26, 2010really digging Bazar, Medium. Thanks for this list!
Catalin
March 26, 2010Thanks Henry, matchbook and bazar are my favorites
Ben
March 26, 2010really awesome list of freebies. as a type lover, i always get into this stuff. keep in mind you have gotta check out http://www.pilo.me the typography forum with about every font imagineable (free or exclusive). im pretty sure eames century modern was just released there last week. anyhow, check it out and thanks again for the wonderful post!
emmanuel
March 26, 2010I often see font collections, but THIS one wonderful! Thanks
Ray Larabie
March 26, 2010Anastasia is a copy of ITC Anna, ripped off by WSI and licensed to Canon as an OEM font.
http://www.sanskritweb.net/forgers/wsi.pdf
Jhames
March 26, 2010Yeah, I’m a little confused here. How can some of these fonts be free when they’ve been ripped and “licensed”?
Hill House is a copy of ITC Rennie Mackintosh and Louisianne is a copy of ITC Einhorn.
Jordan Walker
March 26, 2010This is a great list of fonts.
Robine
March 26, 2010Loving this!!
Damian Smith
March 26, 2010Thank you very much for some of these! I think im actually in love with Riesling, perfect font for hotel/restaurant style websites. Been on the look out for something like that for a while now actually. (Never can be bothered sifting through font websites)
Always good to have someone pick out some really nice (and free) fonts for you.
I’m finding at the moment that rather than my layout its my font choices that are making some of my designs really stand out. Was pretty rubbish at typography when I first started designing but I’m starting to get the hang of it.
Batfan
March 26, 2010Fantastic collection! Nice to see retro fonts making a comeback
BebopDesigner
March 26, 2010Brilliant collection! This will be really really handy… thanks for sharing
Lena Tailor
March 26, 2010Thanks for this Long list
Louisianne is amazing…
lava360blog
March 26, 2010great fonts with retro and vintage look. thanks for share
bigyaz
March 26, 2010Head says Caslon, but that’s really Caslon Antique.
nate
March 26, 2010What about Mailart Rubberstamp? http://www.dafont.com/mailart-rubberstamp.font
Great font
TheShadow
March 26, 2010Thanks for this wonderful sets of fonts
Mathew Carpenter
March 27, 2010Great list! Will definitely help on those vintage projects.
Joefrey Mahusay
March 27, 2010Thanks a lot.. Great post
Sidd
March 27, 2010Thanks. Very useful indeed.
Web Design
March 27, 2010Thanks a lot.. Great post
LW Design
March 28, 2010I have a Vintage style site coming up and this resource will be perfect.
Birgit
March 30, 2010that’s a nice and handy resource collection, thanks!
Derek
April 6, 2010Great list thanks for posting!
lono
April 12, 2010great font collection
Ted Rex
April 13, 2010Fantastic collection. I already have one of these fonts in mind for an ad I’m putting together.
I featured this page as one of my three links for today’s Design Thought blog:
http://designthoughtfortheday.blogspot.com/2010/04/04-13-better-blog-vintage-fonts.html
All the best, Ted
Marty
April 17, 2010O! I am so excited! I definitely did not have some of these in my library…
Vikusik
August 27, 2010Thanks, for a collection of good fonts!
Brett Widmann
January 9, 2011This is a great collection! My favorite is Arwin.
Theraisa K
February 27, 2011I really like these fonts, especially Matchbook and Rocket Script. Great collection.
Laura N
March 6, 2011Thank you thank you thank you! I am designing a newsletter for my Father-in-Law’s vintage car club. Ballpark is exactly what I was looking for, and without having to wade through a zillion font sites! (Fun, but a time sucker). You just saved my Sunday afternoon.
nariadelsol
June 15, 2011i will use upper east side formy design in director thanks so much
Juan Abad
July 2, 2011Nice collection! Anagram and Upper East Side look fantasic!
Alexander Bickov
January 9, 2012Amazing collection, thanks
Mikey
January 9, 2012Thanks for Bazar, it’s really come in handy.
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[...] = 'webdesignledger'; tweetmeme_service = 'bit.ly'; Last week, Henry posted an article with 30 Fonts Perfect for Vintage and Retro Style Design and I simply loved the first font of the list, the matchbook typefaces. By the time I saw it I [...]