Font How-To Guide: Everything You Need to Know About Font Files

Brand Design

Have you ever heard of purchasing your fonts? That’s right. They aren’t always free, especially if you use them in your brand. So in short, yes, you always need to purchase your font licenses.

First, let’s define some key terms: 

Typeface: A set of characters of the same design including letters, numbers, punctuation marks and symbols. A typeface often consists of multiple fonts.

Font: An assortment or set of type or characters all of one style and sometimes 

one size.

EULA: (End User License Agreement) A contract between a software producer and the eventual user of the product, specifying the terms and conditions of use.

Webfont: The licensed font can appear in multiple websites owned or controlled by the Licensee. Pageview limit agreed upon at checkout.

Desktop Font: The licensed font can appear in unlimited commercial and personal projects including, but not limited to, physical end products, social media, broadcast, packaging, and paid ads.

Font Licenses

So what actually is a font license? When either a designer or you purchase a font or typeface, there are laws in place that tell us how we can use that font or typeface. Often, this restricts the number of uses of the font or how many computers it can be on. Sometimes there are even restrictions on whether it can be used in design only or if it’s allowed to be used on the web.

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Webfont vs. Desktop Font

You may see options to purchase a “webfont.” Oftentimes, you need to select a pageview limit for webfont licenses. That means if your website has more traffic, you may need to pay a higher price (legally) to use that font. With webfont licenses you can use this to embed fonts into a site or upload them for website or web app usage.


You might also see options to buy your font or typeface suite as a “desktop font.”What this means is you can use that font in “unlimited commercial and personal projects including, but not limited to, physical end products, social media, broadcast, packaging, and paid ads” (Creative Market). However, don’t be deceived, this does not mean this includes using the font on your website. You need to purchase both!

Penalties

So what are the penalties if you use a font and don’t purchase it?  “Not understanding user license agreements or utilizing fonts incorrectly can lead to font copyright lawsuits.” (Extensis). One exception to this is if you have an Adobe Creative Cloud account. You will have access to those Adobe fonts for free when using them in Adobe programs and can actually copy the code for the fonts into your website using https://fonts.adobe.com/. Just make sure your web builder allows you to upload fonts via code. 

How to Download & Install Your Fonts

Downloading and installing your fonts are fairly easy. After purchasing your fonts, the checkout page should re-direct you or email you Your fonts for download to your desktop. From there here are two tutorials to show how to install them: 

Video Tutorial for Macs

Video Tutorial for Windows

Here are some of my favorite places to purchase fonts from:

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