Fonts in Use: Enter a Giant Archive of Typography, Featuring 12,618 Typefaces

Type selec­tion is an inten­sive process that requires inti­mate knowl­edge of a brand’s val­ues, audi­ence, com­pe­ti­tion, voice, and goals.

—Fonts in Use, FAQ

Fonts in Use is a typog­ra­phy nerd’s dream come true.

The 10-year-old inde­pen­dent archive of typog­ra­phy has col­lect­ed over 17,000 designs, each using at least one of over 12,000 type­face fam­i­lies from more than 3,500 type com­pa­nies. Each font is con­tex­tu­al­ized with images depict­ing them in the wild, on every­thing from wine labels and store­fronts to book cov­ers, record albums, movie posters and of course, adver­tis­ing of all shapes and sizes.

Fonts can cre­ate unlike­ly bed­fel­lows.

The Ramones’ icon­ic seal achieved its pres­i­den­tial look thanks to ITC Tiffany.

Oth­er mem­o­rable appear­ances include the first edi­tion cov­er of Ita­lo Calvino’s exper­i­men­tal nov­el If On a Winter’s Night a Trav­el­er and the titles for Ham­mer Film’s 1980 anthol­o­gy TV series, Ham­mer House of Hor­ror.

Fonts in Use’s man­ag­ing edi­tor, Flo­ri­an Hard­wig, describes ITC Tiffany as “Ed Ben­guiat’s 1974 revis­i­ta­tion and inter­pre­ta­tion of 19th-cen­tu­ry faces like West Old Style or Old Style Title,” not­ing such “Vic­to­ri­an details” as “large angled ser­ifs and sharply ter­mi­nat­ed diag­o­nals.”

The prin­ci­pal cast of Law & Order under­went sev­er­al changes over the show’s 20-year run, but Friz Quadra­ta remained a con­stant, sup­ply­ing titles and such nec­es­sary details as loca­tion, time, and date.

Friz Quadra­ta should be equal­ly famil­iar to Dun­geons & Drag­ons play­ers of a cer­tain age and fans of Gar­den Wafers, the pack­aged cook­ies from Hong Kong that are a sta­ple of state­side Asian mar­kets.

Artist Bar­bara Kruger’s dis­tinc­tive text-based work places overt com­men­tary in white ital­i­cized Futu­ra on red bands on top of black and white images.

Futu­ra was also the face of a tourist map to Berlin dur­ing the 1936 sum­mer Olympics and author David Rees’ tongue-in-cheek guide How to Sharp­en Pen­cils: A Prac­ti­cal & The­o­ret­i­cal Trea­tise on the Arti­sanal Craft of Pen­cil Sharp­en­ing for Writ­ers, Artists, Con­trac­tors, Flange Turn­ers, Angle­smiths, & Civ­il Ser­vants.

Com­ic Sans may not get much love out in the real world, but it’s well rep­re­sent­ed in the archive’s user sub­mis­sions.

You’ll find grow­ing num­bers of fonts in Cyril­lic, as well as fonts famil­iar to read­ers of Chi­nese, Japan­ese, Kore­an, Ara­bic, Greek and Hebrew…

New­bie Net­flix Sans keeps com­pa­ny with 19th-cen­tu­ry sans Bureau Grot, a favorite of Vice Pres­i­dent-Elect Kamala Har­ris…

Fat Albert, Tin­toret­to, Ben­guiat Caslon, Scor­pio, Hoopla and Saphir are your tick­et back to a far groovi­er peri­od in the his­to­ry of graph­ic art.

Spend an hour or two rum­mag­ing through the col­lec­tion and we guar­an­tee you’ll feel an urgent need to upload typo­graph­ic exam­ples pulled from your shelves and cab­i­nets.

Fonts in Use wel­comes such sub­mis­sions, as long as type is clear­ly vis­i­ble in your uploaded image and is—or was—in use (as opposed to an exam­ple of let­ter­ing for lettering’s sake). They will also con­sid­er cus­tom type­faces which are his­tor­i­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant or oth­er­wise out­stand­ing, and those that are avail­able to the gen­er­al pub­lic. Please include a short descrip­tion in your com­men­tary, and when­ev­er pos­si­ble, cred­it any design­ers, pho­tog­ra­phers, or sources of your image.

Typog­ra­phy nerds are stand­ing by to help.

Begin your explo­rations of Fonts in Use here. If you’re feel­ing over­whelmed, the Staff Picks are a great place to start.

via MetaFil­ter

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The His­to­ry of Typog­ra­phy Told in Five Ani­mat­ed Min­utes

Why This Font Is Every­where: How Coop­er Black Became Pop Culture’s Favorite Font

Down­load Hel­l­veti­ca, a Font that Makes the Ele­gant Spac­ing of Hel­veti­ca Look as Ugly as Pos­si­ble

Ayun Hal­l­i­day is an author, illus­tra­tor, the­ater mak­er and Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine. She most recent­ly appeared as a French Cana­di­an bear who trav­els to New York City in search of food and mean­ing in Greg Kotis’ short film, L’Ourse.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.