You may also be interested in these review sites...

What Services do Font Companies Provide?


Font companies provide unique, custom or licensed typefaces. Font services not only supply fonts for books or printed materials, but also licensed fonts for logos or product labeling and digitized fonts for cell phones, games, websites, software or other electronic, digital mediums.

Most font providers offer many useful and specialized services, such as:

  • Font Conversions - Conversion of one format to another, such as Postscript to TrueType.
  • Non-Latin Fonts - Special characters or full font sets for Non-Latin languages, Arabic or CE characters.
  • Digitization of Artwork - The transferring of existing artwork or scanned fonts into a digitized format.
  • Custom Typefaces - The creation of a font for a specific purpose, such as for corporate use, magazine or website publishing or for branding, logos, symbols or labeling. Some providers can develop fonts from handwriting as well.
  • Specialized Character Creation - Often this service is used for the creation of specialized characters for corporate use or language conversions.
In this site, we offer reviews of the top ten font providers. You will also find articles and recent news stories relating to the font industry to help you make an informed decision on which provider is best for you. At TopTenREVIEWS—We do the research so you don't have to.™


What to Look for in a Font Service?

Ultimately, the best service for a particular project is the one that can provide the desired font in the required format. Similar to stock photography, several services may be used regularly depending on what is needed. Some font services offer English language fonts at a reasonable price and may be a good option for some projects, whereas other sites may offer non-Latin, Arabic or CE characters. For branding, logos or company symbols, a specialized font provider can be consulted and licensing options evaluated.

To assist in finding just the right font provider for a project, we evaluated the top ten services in the industry. Below are the criteria that TopTenREVIEWS used to evaluate online font services:

  • Ease of Use – Evaluates how easy it is to find relevant information on the website such as font searches, specials, articles, contact/support information and format options. Once a font search is completed, it is also helpful if the service displays the formats available with the download price and package alternatives.
  • Feature Set – Assesses the features the service offers such as free fonts, font packages and CDs, licensing options, special services and the languages and formats available. A good service offers fonts in TrueType, OpenType and PostScript and an exceptional service offers Unicode compliant fonts and non-Latin characters as well.
  • Ease of Download – This criterion evaluates the download process. Good font services should provide error-free downloads and you should be able to view and use the acquired fonts without problems.
  • Available Tools – Font management, creation and conversion tools are valuable tools to offer clients; this section relates what tools, both purchasable and free, a particular service offers.
  • Help/Support – We looked at the customer/technical support aspects of the company and the available contact methods. The best services offer toll-free telephone and email support and respond to inquires quickly. We also considered the additional sources of information such as discussion forums, FAQ/help pages, articles, magazines or newsletters.
To begin your search for the perfect font provider for your project, consult the matrix above. Read the review of our #1 service, Fonts.com for general font services, ITC for classic quality fonts and Linotype for non-Latin characters.

Software web-services hardware Movies Music Games
#4
#5
#6
#7
#8
#9
#10
ARTICLES
Font Services Definitions
10 Font and Text Tips
Font Formats Demystified


More News: Read about new site updates via our XML/RSS news feed



Font BOOKS
Font Services Books

Font NEWS

December 11, 2006
Lower screen resolution boosts font size
The Mercury Newst
I'm probably one of the last people still using AOL 9.0 with a dial-up modem. Lately, when I visit certain Web sites, some of the displayed fonts are incredibly tiny and hard to read. Is there anything I can do to make these fonts larger?


December 9, 2006
Art production and the open source paradigm
NewsForge
Every good piece of writing has a distinct style that manifests itself in consistency and coherence.Likewise, good visual design has its own style and syntax that makes the artwork structured and meaningful. The grammar of a work of art manifests itself i


November 10, 2006
Malcolm Grear on Letterforms and Typography
informit.com
Every letter is not necessarily beautiful when judged as a single unit. Each letter is companion to 25 others; some are symmetrical, others asymmetrical. The beauty of a letter is revealed by how it meshes with companion parts of a total typographic syste


Font Services News Articles




Font Services Review - A Review of the top Font Services products

Find your Alphabets and Character Sets

Stylize with typeface. Top font services provide licensed or original fonts, special characters and consultations to help market your style.

Click to read   "What Services do Font Companies Provide?"

 eMAIL TO A FRIEND
   
Excellent
Very Good
Good
Fair
Poor
Rank 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Reviewer Comments
Lowest Price (ITC Arid TrueType)
$32.00


$39.00


$22.00


$19.95


$9.90*


$19.95


$39.00


$2.00*


$2.33**


$2.00*

Overall Rating
Ratings
Ease of Use
Feature Set
Ease of Download
Available Tools
Help/Support
Features
Free Fonts



 
     
Font Packages              
 
Submit Your Design
       

 

Search Feature              


Expert Search    







Search by Category        
   

 
Font CD's            


 
TrueType                    
PostScript            

   
OpenType            
 

Tools Available for Purchase
Font Creation  

 





Font Manager

   





Font Conversion    
 





Font Editor








 
Free Tools
Font Creation (Mac Only)


 





Font Manager

   

 


File Expander

 






Help/Support
Toll-Free Phone Support    

 




Phone Support      
 




24-hour Support









International Toll-Free Support    







Forum






 

FAQ's    
             
e-Mail Address  
     
     
Online Form
 


 
 

Helpful Articles      

 



Supported Configurations
PC                    
Mac            
   
Service Details Detail Detail Detail Detail Detail Detail Detail Detail Detail Detail
 
Rank 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
TOP TEN SERVICES Fonts.co ITC Linotype MyFonts Chank Fonthaus HighFont Font Garden Font Diner BuyFonts

* These companies don't offer ITC fonts, so their lowest priced font is used for comparison.

** Lowest priced font when purchased in a 12 pack.


 
 
Home    Resources    About Us    Contact us    Advertising    Sitemap    TopTenREVIEWS.com    hhgregg   
Privacy Policy


Copyright ©2008 TopTenREVIEWS, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of TopTenREVIEWS, Inc. is prohibited.


Fonts.com Review 2008 - Top Font Services ITC Review 2008 - Top Font Services Linotype Review 2008 - Top Font Services MyFonts Review 2008 - Top Font Services Chank Review 2008 - Top Font Services Fonthaus Review 2008 - Top Font Services HighFonts.com Review 2008 - Top Font Services Font Garden Review 2008 - Top Font Services Font Diner Review 2008 - Top Font Services BuyFonts.com Review 2008 - Top Font Services