The Ultimate Guide to Fonts for Glowforge
Let’s talk fonts.
If you’re anything like me, your font library (or dream font library) is huge.
Choosing the perfect font for a project is one of my favorite parts of design work.
As I mentor new Glowforge owners, I hear the same font questions over and over:
Can’t I just use free fonts?
Where do I buy fonts?
Can I use fonts in my physical products? What about if I design files?
How should I organize my fonts?
My customer is asking for this exact font, but I have no idea what it is. Where can I find out?
How do I get those swashes into my design?
These are all such important questions, so let’s dive in.
Can’t I just use free fonts?
The answer is almost always no. Why? Well, fonts are licensed for different uses. Free fonts are usually licensed only for personal use. This means that if you are creating a product for yourself, or as a gift, you can likely use the font. However, if you plan to sell the product, you cannot. One exception to this: font marketplaces (which we’ll discuss in the next question) often offer a free font or two each week to those who sign up for their emails. Just make sure that the commercial license is included! That information will always be available if you look for it.
Where should I buy fonts?
There are a few popular font marketplaces. I prefer Creative Market (and I love their emails with free fonts each week!). One tip: if you find a font you love, look for the designer and search Google for their website—the fonts are often cheaper directly from the designer. Font bundles and Creative Fabrica are other popular marketplaces, and they often run sales where you can buy several fonts for $1.
Can I use fonts in my physical products? What about in my files?
Each font marketplace has its own system for licensing, so it’s important that you look at the specific licenses when you buy fonts. That said, generally speaking: if you buy a commercial license, you can use the font in physical products for sale. For digital products, you can usually also use the font AS LONG AS there’s no way for the customer to extract the font. So you wouldn’t want to include the font in the file bundle, or even use every single letter in your file. That said, words and phrases are usually fine, especially since you outline the font for use in the Glowforge. Again: read your license! One reason I stick with Creative Market for my fonts is that I’m familiar with the licensing so I don’t need to check each time.
How should I organize my fonts?
I’ll be honest, I make my system very simple: I never download fonts that are personal use only. That way, I can be sure that any font is fine to use for design. However, if you have both personal and commercial use fonts, or if you prefer to organize based on script/serif/sans serif, you can check out font organization plugins for your specific system.
My customer wants this specific font. How do I find it?
Well, 75% of the time, that font is Madina Clean. It’s a very popular font with customers. Here’s the link for you. If it isn’t that font, you have a few options. What the font and other similar sites allow you to upload a photo and it will suggest similar fonts. That isn’t at all foolproof, so don’t despair if it doesn’t nail it. There are also Facebook groups that are dedicated to identifying fonts. The Glowforge User Group is super helpful with this, even though it’s not the purpose of the group.
How do I add the swashes?
This is a little different than the other font questions, but I hear it so often that I felt like we needed to address it here. These swashes are usually located in the Glyphs. If you use Adobe Illustrator, you will click the Type menu at the very top, then select Glyphs. Scroll through the glyphs until you see the swashes, and experiment with each until you find the ones you love.
That about covers it! Are there any other font questions you have? Let me know, and I’ll make sure to cover those in future posts.
