Type Foundry Directory
Filterable index of ~394 type foundries and their font licensing terms
Tier S · Best in classDirectoryReferencetypefoundry.directory
A curated, opinionated index of independent type foundries, built by Matthew Smith of Morning Type in 2018 and maintained out of Airtable. Its real value is not the font specimens but the licensing metadata: for each foundry it records purchasing-power parity, licensing model, desktop/web/app metrics, whether self-hosted webfonts are allowed, whether web tracking is required, whether the designer is covered by the client licence, and whether logo use, social media use and modification are permitted. Filters also cover founding year, country, script and language support, variable fonts, trial fonts, student discounts and platform presence (Adobe Fonts, Fontstand, Future Fonts, Fonts In Use). It deliberately skips large private-equity-backed foundries in favour of active independents.
For an agent
Reach for this before you recommend a paid typeface to a client, not to browse specimens — Fonts In Use or the foundry's own site is better for that. It is the only place that answers the questions that actually kill a font purchase: can the webfont be self-hosted, does the licence require phoning home for tracking, is logo use allowed, is the designer covered by the client's licence. There is no public API, so read it in a browser and copy the terms out by hand; do not assume the data is current, since it is maintained by one person on an irregular schedule.
Why it is here. Font licensing is the most under-documented risk in brand work, and this is the only structured, comparable dataset of foundry terms that exists in public.
Facts
- License
- Unknown
- Pricing
- Free
- Framework
- Not applicable
- Styling
- Not applicable
- Distribution
- Web app / online tool, Browse-only gallery or archive
- Platform
- Web
- Content type
- Dataset / structured records, Prose / writing, Fonts / typefaces
- Agent readiness
- No agent surface
- Accessibility
- Unknown
- Maturity
- Stable
Notable for
- licensing terms compared across foundries
- purchasing-power-parity flag
- self-hosted webfont flag
- web-tracking-required flag
- indie foundries only, by design
Provenance
Verified 2026-08-15. HTTP 200. https://typefoundry.directory/, https://typefoundry.directory/about (https://typefoundry.directory/foundries returned 404)
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