40 Free Fonts Ideal For Retro And Vintage Designs
Posted on 07. May, 2010 by Shawn Ramsey in Resources

Need a font to compliment your retro style designs? Below you will find a collection of 40 free fonts perfect for the job.
Vintage and retro style designs can be a beautiful thing. By using a combination of rough textures, grungy patterns and brushes meant to add a scratched or used appearance, designers can easily pull of the antique look. To compliment this aged appearance, it is important to use the proper typography to help match the style you are trying to represent. To help you out, I’ve rounded up 40 attractive retro and vintage fonts to use in your designs.
Bobel
Parisian
Deftone Stylus
Seaside Resort
Airstream
Dymaxion Script
Star Avenue
20db
Bazar Medium
Mailart Rubberstamp
Matchbook Typefaces
Nougat
Fletcher Gothic
Nashville
Chi-Town
Blue Plate Special
Showboat
Day Poster Black
Circus Ornate
Diner Regular
Carnivalee Freakshow
East Market
Tall Deco
Sesame
Minstrel Poster
Louisianne
Bellerose
Campanile
Forty Second Street (TrueType Font)
Hamburger Heaven
Minotaur
Stony Island
Ballpark
Studebaker
Secesja
Echo Deco
Market Deco
Kelvinized
Titania
Sandwich
Find What You Were Looking For?
I’m hoping that you found at least one new font to add to your collection. I did my best to use each font in a sort of vintage style design so that you could see it in action. While compiling this list there were a few that I fell in love with, including – Bobel, Diner Regular, Sesame and Titania just to name a few. Which ones did you adopt for your designs? Let the rest of us know in the comment section below. Thanks!
YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY:
45 Responses to “40 Free Fonts Ideal For Retro And Vintage Designs”
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
- - 23. May, 2010


















































Allan Spece
07. May, 2010
Well done my friend! I just adopted Campanile. Great job displaying the fonts.
Shawn Ramsey
07. May, 2010
I like Campanile as well, It’s very similar to Sesame. Thanks Allan!
Federica Sibella
07. May, 2010
Thank you for the big round up! I just used Seaside Resort for my last project and it works beautifully! You can see it live at http://www.festeggiano.it
Shawn Ramsey
07. May, 2010
Wow, it looks great. I love the color scheme too. It’s nice to see one of these fonts in action. Thanks Federica!
Dave
06. Aug, 2010
Hey Federica. Site looks good but just a heads up, jQuery does not load up in IE 7 which ends up making the site look horrid. It creates a scroll bar inside of that div on the left and causes text to scroll over the navigation.
Rocky
07. May, 2010
Nice font collection..
Shawn Ramsey
07. May, 2010
I appreciate it Rocky! Hope you found one that you liked.
Nils
07. May, 2010
great job! I adopted about fifteen.
Shawn Ramsey
07. May, 2010
Wow, fifteen! I’m glad I could uncover so many free fonts for your collection!
tom
07. May, 2010
Awesome, these couldnt have come a batter time for me! thanks a bunch.
Shawn Ramsey
07. May, 2010
No problem Tom. I’m glad the roundup came in handy for you!
Hilde
09. May, 2010
A great collection! Nice work and thanks for sharing :D
ARTisani
10. May, 2010
Very nice collection.
Thanks for the share.
I was looking for the carnivalee or something similar already a while now.
Hillary
10. May, 2010
This is a fabulous collection and very different! Thank you for this.
Sam Aaron
10. May, 2010
WOW !! i was looking something just like this!!! what are the chances . thank you a million times
!!!!!!
katerlake
11. May, 2010
This fonts are looking great. Thanks for sharing.
e mesghali
12. May, 2010
i love the fonts but im much more impressed with the background of each example. where do you find these textures and designs?!
Lisa
12. May, 2010
Great list!
May want to double-check before using as some say they are free for personal use :)
Shawn Ramsey
12. May, 2010
Yeah, they are not all free for commercial use, but they are for personal use. That is the case with a lot of free fonts. The good news is if you like them enough in your personal designs, they can be bought for relatively cheap. Thanks Lisa, it is good to point that out.
blackvalon
13. May, 2010
Great resource! I love retro&vintage style.
Oliver
13. May, 2010
Fantastic post! I enjoyed looking through the fonts.
CentralOrbit
14. May, 2010
OH my goodness. Looking at this list just makes me drool…
If only I had more projects to use these fonts on! I would never tire of retro and vintage design, if only I had more excuses!
Hermitbiker
23. May, 2010
…. a fantastic collection of fonts ideal for “retro and vintage” designs that anyone can use !!
Marcell Purham | Webdevtuts
23. May, 2010
Those are great fonts! Awesome post :)
TechGyo
27. May, 2010
Yeah, really awesome fonts!!
ki
27. May, 2010
Thank you so much! I fell in love with Secesja. Had used Carnivalee Freakshow on my very first design…
sir jorge
30. May, 2010
those fonts are incredible
Scott Webb
05. Jun, 2010
I love all of theses fonts. Best font listing post I’ve ever come across! Thank you
Jeremy
07. Jun, 2010
What are the chances these might be packaged for one big download…I want them ALL! : )
Theraisa K
08. Jun, 2010
Great collection, many of them I’ve used in the past, but a few I’ve never seen before and really like!
sir jorge
17. Jun, 2010
great fonts, and great designs
Calgary Graphic Design
22. Jun, 2010
Awesome! instant style, in a font. Thanks for the collection!
Web Design Blog
03. Jul, 2010
Superb fonts I especially love the Diner Regular font.
PurpleB
04. Jul, 2010
I love this but i always have a hard time installing new fonts :(
Rick
04. Jul, 2010
Thank you…Studebaker is MINE! heh heh heh
Jacob Williamson
05. Jul, 2010
Thanks. The font diner regular reminds me of a really expensive font that I almost had to buy called knockout, plus it works in other design situations and not just retro.
Ivan
06. Jul, 2010
Thank you! so useful for my future work! hehe :P
energy monitoring
07. Jul, 2010
Deftone Stylus, Airstream, Hamburger Heaven, Ballpark, Studebaker, Market Deco, Kelvinized, Titania, and Sandwich are my favorites.
Rone
08. Jul, 2010
Man…I absolutely love the way you’ve displayed the fonts, really gives you a good idea how they can work in a Vintage inspired design…well done. In fact I’m now on the hunt for some similar background images…..awesome.
KJ
28. Jul, 2010
Thank you so very much. I will honestly download them all… they are fantastic and I am sure I will need them in the future.
Sarah Samways
29. Jul, 2010
Just StumbleUpon’d you and I’m so glad I did. They’re all so pretty. Thanks for posting! :)
lita
06. Aug, 2010
thank you so muchhh.. love it :)
Cleibo
26. Aug, 2010
I love the display of the fonts, it’s so clean and organized :D
Dan@ASC
29. Aug, 2010
Thanks very much Shawn! I’m very surprised I haven’t noticed this thread before now – several additions to my personal collection, and I think Secesja fits the bill for my personal blog!
Thanks again!