College Fonts
College fonts are a unique breed of type. While they each perform well in a variety of settings, something about them speaks to their affiliations with higher learning! When most people think of college fonts they think of pennants or one of the more popular college sports teams, so it isn't surprising that these are some of the best places to find examples of these kinds of fonts.
One of the top things that stands in the way of someone finding the perfect university fonts is a price tag; sad as it might be, cost is often a determining factor in many a design project! What is there was something that could be done? And what if there were free college fonts out there that were just as good as their commercial brothers and sisters? Many free fonts are not that stylistically different from their commercial counterparts, take the following examples:
The Block Fonts
These fonts remind you of letterforms that have been carved from a single block and are reminiscent of an early printing press. They are commonly used as varsity fonts and are also popular college football fonts as well. These kinds of fonts can be found all over clothing and accessories for any of a number of major college sports teams, football included of course!
- Commercial example: Octin College
Octin College is a full-featured font family that offers several different typefaces in various weights and styles. It features the standard "extras" including fractions and ligatures. It requires a license to use which you receive if you buy either an individual font or the entire family.
- Free example: Bou College
Bou College is a free alternative to a commercial font like Octin College and offers many of the same features including special characters. Bou College comes in a single weight which is ideal for most projects where varsity fonts or university fonts are required!
The Hollow Fonts
The most popular kinds of college football fonts are the hollow fonts; usually serif fonts, they can be sans-serif is some cases but this is by far the minority. Hollow fonts are famous for their use as the letters on letterman jackets, college spirit apparel, and many other projects that require college fonts.
- Commercial example: Player Pro Outline Bold
An iconic font with all of the trimmings, Player Outline Bold is right at home on any college campus! Special characters are supported as well as various foreign languages.
- Free example: Allstar
Nipping at the heels of its commercial cousin, Allstar is a free college font that shows that you don't have to be an expensive commercial font to make the team! Also supporting many special characters this is a great alternative font for people on a budget.
These are only a sample of the commercial / free font pairs that can be found when searching for that perfect college font for your next project! We believe that price shouldn't be the determining factor when someone is seeking of ideal college fonts for their project; if there is a free font with all of the same basic characters and forms as a commercial font, why not give the free college fonts a try? Some might argue that the commercial font is better because it has been designed by a professional who specializes in typography... and what is to say that the free font was not also designed by a type professional? At the end of the day the decision should be made by you, the designer, and by the people who are going to be viewing your design!
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