Using existing fonts in your designs can add personality and style, but it’s important to follow the right guidelines to ensure your work is both creative and compliant. This article will guide you through the essentials of font usage, licensing, and best practices, so you can confidently deliver polished designs to your clients.
1. Familiarize yourself with font licensing.
When using any existing font, it's important to ensure that the font’s licensing allows for the client’s intended use, especially when the design includes more than just text (see the section below on text-only, wordmark logos). Always take a moment to review the licenses for any fonts you didn’t create yourself. Licensing information is usually easy to find on legitimate font foundries’ websites. If you can’t find the license for a font, don’t use it.
2. Share fonts the responsible and legal way.
To stay compliant with font licenses, don’t upload or directly share font files with clients. Instead, provide them with a link to where they can purchase the font themselves or convert your text to outlines to preserve the look without needing the font installed. This way, your clients will always have a clear and easy path to use the fonts in their designs.
3. Convert text to outlines for consistency.
To ensure your design looks just as stunning on your client’s computer as it does on yours, it’s a good practice to convert text into shapes (or "outlines") before submitting your files.
For projects like business cards or flyers where clients may want to edit the text later, be sure to leave the text editable in EPS & PDF files. Remember to also provide the name of the font you used and where it can be purchased. For more on typefaces, check out the blog article: Typefaces: the good, the bad and the legal.
4. Create original fonts for wordmark logos
Wordmark logos are made entirely of text, so originality is key. You must use your own custom font or modify an existing one, as long as the license allows it. Simply adding a box or line to a font doesn’t count as a modification, so ensure your design is genuinely unique. For more guidance, check out our article on creating wordmark logos.
5. Avoid using symbol fonts
While symbol fonts like Wingdings or Dingbats can be fun to use, these fonts are considered to be third party material, like stock art, so it’s important to declare them in contests where stock content is permitted. Some symbols, like the recycle symbol, are in the public domain and can be used freely, but they still need to be part of a larger design or heavily modified to be copyrighted or trademarked. Discover more about using public domain works here.
If you spot a contest entry that uses an unmodified font, be sure to verify the font’s name and follow these instructions to report the entry to our designer support team.