150+ Best High-Quality Free Fonts For Download

Here at Pencil Scoop, we live, breathe and eat typography. So much so that today, we are bringing you the greatest 150 free fonts on the web.

Tweet

110+ Best High-Quality Free WordPress Themes

No matter what your design, coding or blogging experience, WordPress is easily the most comprehensive, reliable and complete content management system.

Tweet

Design & Dev Monthly Periodical – April 2014

Each month we be post a brief review-article featuring the very best of what’s been happening in the world of design and development over the course of the previous month. This typically includes news, features, newly released fonts, freebies, plugins and other important happenings across our industry, keeping you up to date on what’s trending each month.

Tweet

The Evolution Of Console Controller Design (1958-2014)

A few days ago I was reminiscing about the good old days when Nintendo and Sega ruled the video game industry. Eventually I ended up playing a flash based version of Double Dragon 2 on a website dedicated to preserving the games of the golden era.
As I looked down at my backlit MacBook Pro keyboard, with all its engineering and complexities, it got me thinking about console controllers. Originally, Double Dragon was released on the Nintendo – which had a brick of a controller with 4 buttons (start, select, A & B) and a D-pad. A marvel at the time indeed.
However the humble console controller has been around for far longer than the 80′s and 90′s. The first game controller (and first video game ever) was created in 1958.
Today, we’re taking a journey through history, looking back at how console controllers have evolved. This is by no means a complete list of every controller ever released, however I’ve tried to include most of the controllers of historical importance and major influence.

Tweet

5 Tips To Great Portfolio Design and Presentation

Portfolio design and personal websites are probably the single most important facet of any designers’ professional online identity. So it’s no surprise that your personal website should get as much (if not more) attention than anything else you spend time on – whether that be side-projects or client work.
Reinventing yourself through your portfolio is a great place to start the long and continual journey that is personal branding. A personal website should be treated as any other design project, and for me the first thing that comes to mind is always – the target audience: Who are we designing for? Nailing this question, should be your first consideration in creating your online identity.

Tweet

30+ Super Cool .js Plugins You Should Bookmark

These days, there’s pretty much a [insert task].js plugin for everything. You’ll often find them when you’re working on a project and need to achieve a specific result. However it’s sometimes hard to find what you’re looking for, especially given the sheer size and scope of GitHub.
Today I’ve compiled this list of some useful js plugins that may come in handy for your next project. I’ve tried to limit this list to focus quality, rather than a massive list of low-quality useless plugins. There are some real gems in here. Hope you enjoy!

---

Tweet

50+ Awesome Free Tools For Web Developers

If you’re a front-end developer or web designer, chances are you spend a lot of time writing mark-up.  Luckily, there are some great tools and projects on the web for improving your next project easily and quickly.
Often you may need a little helping hand to get things done. Today we have tracked down over 50 brilliant free online tools for developers. We’ve included everything from mark-up organizers, grid systems, jQuery plugins, gradient generators and much more.
Enjoy.

Tweet

95+ Best Free & Awesome PSD UI Kits

PSD templates are an essential part of any good designers creative repertoire. It’s always good to design from scratch, but often due to a project’s time restraints, it’s often difficult to do so.
When designing for mobile or the web, templates can provide a good base as starting point for any project. Furthermore they provide valuable insight into other designer’s workflow and techniques.
So whether you’re designing an app or a mobile website, having a good collection of mock-ups UI elements is integral. Of course you can always pay or create your own custom UIs, but today with so much free content it’s relatively easy to visualize your latest project for free.
So today we have compiled this comprehensive list of free PSD mobile UI templates for your enjoyment. We hope you find something handy for your next project.

Tweet

150+ Free Animated SVG Icons

SVG implementation is fast becoming one of the hottest topics sweeping design and development circles as of late. With all the start-ups and JavaScript libraries, I wanted to create a set of SVG icons that have zero third-party dependencies and that can be implemented easily.

However, the idea with this article is to provide a set of icons that any web designer or developer can use. Let’s take a look at how everything’s setup.

 Download Source

---

Setup

As you can see in the demo, there are 6 different sets of icons with various differences in styling and animation. All the styling and animation is done exclusively in CSS, externally from the inline SVG mark-up. If you take a look at the source files, you’ll notice I’ve separated all the styling into individual styles-sheets for the corresponding icon style.
Let’s take a look at the general document setup:

1. <!DOCTYPE>
2. <head>
3. <meta charset="utf-8">
4. <title>150+ Animated SVG Icons Demo</title>
5. <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css/social_line_styles.css"><!--SVG Styles & Animation-->
6. </head>
7. <body>
8. 
   
9. <span class="svg-icon flat-line" id="line-lightning"></span><!-- SVG icon is injected via JavaScript into span via the ID -->
10. 
    
11. <script src="js/svg_inject_scoial_line.js"></script><!--SVG injection script - contains the inline SVG Data-->
12. 
    
13. </body>
14. </html>

As you can see, the setup is quite simple. The SVG mark-up is injected externally via JavaScript and styled in an external style-sheet.

---

SVG Injection

Let’s take a look at how the JavaScript injects the SVG into the page. The idea here is that you can use it more dynamically as you won’t need to worry about putting SVG inline SVG’s directly into the page. All you need to do is create an HTML element with the corresponding “id”, and the script will inject the SVG into that element. Additionally, I’ve included all the cleaned and optimised SVG files if you prefer to use other means of implementing.

1. var SVGstring = "<!--SVG Mark-Up Goes Here-->";
2. 
   
3. $(SVGstring).appendTo('#DIV-NAME');

---

The HTML

The HTML is pretty simple, the icons are injected into “<span>”s with a class for general styling and an ‘id” for specific styling and the injection.

1. <span class="svg-icon ICON-CLASS-STYLE" id="INDIVIDUAL ID FOR INJECTION AND STYLING"></span>

---

The CSS

The SVG mark-up contains all the classes and path data. By default, it contains CSS styling mark-up as well. However I’ve placed this in the style-sheets and applied some basic styling and animations. If you want to get more advanced with the animations, feel free to do so.

---

Lastly, the flat design icons were designed by Studio4 | Creative and are free for any use, credit goes to them for the design. However I slightly modified the original designs as well as converted them to SVG (amongst other things). That’s it really. Feel free to use them to your liking.

Please note, although I’ve designed this for easy implementation, you may need to make some minor adjustments in integrating it into your own set-up. Enjoy!

---

 Download Source

Tweet

20 Best New Font Foundries Every Designer Should Know

Today’s typography landscape is largely dominated by a number of transnational distributors such as Adobe, Linotype, Monotype and ITC, making it often difficult to find new emerging foundries that produce quality work.
Don’t get me wrong, these companies produce some amazing typefaces, for both web and print.
However, having said that, there are a number of fantastic new emerging font foundries that are producing equally noteworthy work.
Today, we have taken the opportunity to provide you with the best new 20 font foundries. Enjoy.

---

Sudtipos

Font Range: Large
Font Types: Distinct
Price: Low/Medium
Website MyFonts Gallery

Sudtipos is a new collective Argentinian type foundry. New blood, new attitude. A joint venture of four professional designers with lots of expertise in different areas like branding, packaging design, corporate identity, television and new media.

---

Latinotype

Font Range: Large
Font Types: Distinct
Price: Free/Low
Website MyFonts Gallery

Latinotype is a new digital type foundry established in 2007 in the city of Concepción, Chile. They specialize in bold heading style fonts at a relatively low price.

---

Font Fabric

Font Range: Large
Font Types: Distinct
Price: Low/Medium
Website MyFonts Gallery

Fontfabric is an independent type foundry , which was launched in 2008. They specialize in creating high-quality fonts which stand in a unique class of their own. They also offer a number of great free fonts and typefaces.

---

Lost Type

Font Range: Large
Font Types: Distinct
Price: Pay for appreciation
Website

Lost Type is a Pay-What-You-Want Type foundry and distributor, the first of its kind. Users have the opportunity to pay whatever they like for a font, you can even type in ‘$0′ for a free download. If you choose to pay for your download, proceeds go directly to the designer.

---

HoftType

Font Range: Small
Font Types: Standard Application
Price: Medium
Website MyFonts Gallery

Hoftype is the type foundry of Dieter Hofrichter founded in 2010 and located in Munich, Germany. Hoftype designs new types for professional applications as well as developing new interpretations of classical types for retail and custom purposes.

---

The League of Moveable Type

Font Range: Medium
Font Types: Distinct/Headings
Price: Free
Website Font Squirrel

The league of Moveable Type are a fantastic open-source font distributor. All fonts are free and created open-source, which means anyone can contribute.

---

H&FJ

Font Range: Medium/Large
Font Types: Distinct/Headings
Price: High
Website MyFonts Gallery

Although H&FJ go a long way back as font foundry, they were technically only founded in 2004. They offer a good rounded range of typefaces and fonts for professional use. Their work is carries significant pedigree, although is highly priced.

---

Suitcase Type Foundry

Font Range: Medium/Large
Font Types: Various
Price: High
Website MyFonts Gallery

Suitcase Type Foundry is an independent type foundry, founded by Tomas Brousil in 2003 in Prague, Czech Republic. They specialize in the design and digitization of quality fonts for professional use.

---

exljbris Font Foundry

Font Range: Small
Font Types: Distinct/Headings
Price: Free/Paid
Website MyFonts Gallery

Exljbris offer a number of both free and paid hand-crafted fonts and typefaces. A good source for any type enthusiast.

---

HypeForType

Font Range: Medium
Font Types: Distinct/Headings
Price: Low/Medium
Website MyFonts Gallery

HypeForType is a U.K based award winning font foundry run by Alex Haigh. HypeForType isn’t about banging out standard fonts you’d find in any suite, it’s about collaborating with award-winning designers and making beautiful type not only accessible, but indispensable. HypeForType offer iconic, hand-crafted typefaces that stand out. Their typefaces are reasonably priced and also feature frequent sales and packages.

---

Process Type Foundry

Font Range: Medium
Font Types: Various
Price: Low/Medium
Website MyFonts Gallery

Process is great modern font foundry. They have a large collection of contemporary typefaces at reasonable prices. Process has done a number of commission based typographic work, most notably for New York Times Magazine.

---

Type SketchBook

Font Range: Small
Font Types: Various
Price: Low/Medium
MyFonts Gallery

Typesketchbook Foundry is a new foundry based in Thailand. They focus on the quality of Typography. They don’t have a particularly large range, but the typefaces they offer are super high-quality.

---

House Industries

Font Range: Medium/Large
Font Types: Various
Price: Low/Medium
Website

Known throughout the world as a prolific type foundry, House Industries has made a considerable impact on the world of design. They offer an extensive range of fonts and typefaces at competitive prices.

---

A-2 Type

Font Range: Medium
Font Types: Various
Price: Low/Medium
Website

A2-Type is a new type foundry set up by the London based design studio A2/SW/HK. Established to release and distribute over a decade’s worth of specially crafted typefaces, the foundry offers access to a unique collection of fonts.

---

Feliciano Type Foundry

Font Range: Medium
Font Types: Various
Price: Medium/High
Website MyFonts Gallery

Feliciano is an award winning foundry known most famously for their typeface work for The Sunday Times. They offer a number of traditional and contemporary style typefaces.

---

Ten Dollar Fonts

Font Range: Medium
Font Types: Distinct/Headings
Price: Low
Website

If you’re looking for bang for your buck, then Ten Dollar Fonts might just be what you have been looking for. They specialize in decorative heading based typefaces and have a variety of awesome fonts to choose from. Ten Dollar Fonts is a New Zealand based font foundry, and is more of a distributor than a traditional foundry as such. Their typefaces are provided through the distribution of over 65 typographers from around the world.

---

FenoType

Font Range: Large
Font Types : Distinct
Price: Low/Medium
Website MyFonts Gallery

Fenotype is an arctic type foundry located in Turku, the historical capital of Finland. Fenotype specializes in informal display fonts and luscious scripts.

---

FontSmith

Font Rang: Medium
Font Types: Distinct/Headings
Price: Medium-High
Website MyFonts Gallery

FontSmith is a London based visual communication and font studio. They feature a number of good bold, bright, heading-style typefaces.

---

Tipo Type

Font Rang: Small
Font Types: Distinct/Headings
Price: Low/Medium
Website MyFonts Gallery

TipoType is an international project, focused on the collective distribution of typefaces by specialized typographers.

---

Mostardesign

Font Rang: Small
Font Types: Professional
Price: Low/Medium
Website MyFonts Gallery

Mostardesign is a French graphic design studio, established in 2004 by Olivier Gourvat. Mainly focused on visual communication, type creation, motion graphics and illustration, they have worked on a wide variety of projects for worldwide clients.

Tweet

Animate SVG Icons with CSS3 & jQuery

Recently, there’s been a lot of buzz throughout the web design and development community on using SVG for icons. Due to a number of limitations and inconveniences, using raster-based images for your icons, has become an increasingly painful and restricting endevour.

Tweet

150+ Best Free PSD Mock-Ups for Designers

Mock-ups are an essential part of any good designers creative repertoire. Our ideas and work may be great, but ultimately if not presented properly, a good design can often go astray. Which is why we have mockups. They serve as a integral visual aid to both ourselves and the client in helping bring concept to concrete. Not to mention they save both time and money, letting us focus our attention on what we do best: Design.
So whether you’re designing an app, a website,  a business card, brochure, book, poster, t-shirt, packaging or an entire brand identity, having a good collection of mock-ups is integral. Of course you can always pay or create your own custom mock-ups, but today with so much free content it’s relatively easy to visualize your latest project for free.
So today we have compiled this comprehensive list of free PSD mock-ups, including everything from apps to packaging. We hope you find something handy for your next project.

Tweet

100+ Best Free jQuery CSS Image Hover Effect Demos & Plugins

JQeury hover effects add a nice finishing touch to any website or project. With increasing support of jQuery on modern broswers, along with HTML5 and CSS3 integration, hover effects have become more powerful and easier to implement than ever.
Whether you are using hover effects for images, text, buttons, there are a number of free solutions on the web. Today we have brought you this awesome collection of the best 100 free jQuery CSS image hover effects including both demos and plugins. We hope you find something useful here for your project. Enjoy.

Tweet

Weekly Font Review: FatFrank

Every week, as part of our on-going weekly posts segment, we post a review-article on an exciting typeface or font for your enjoyment.
This week, we are bringing you a fantastically friendly font called FatFrank.
FatFrank comes from Dutch based font foundry Regular Bold Italic (RBI) – a collaborative effort between graphic designers Jeff Schreiber and Timo Kuilder who share a passion for letter design. Since, its original release, the typeface has recently been updated with a complete set of new glyphs including a brand new set of lowercase letters.
FatFrank carries a friendly character through its smoothly curved design and compact nature. However it still grabs headline attention through it’s thick weight and retro feel. It’s a great font for flat-style web design with a retro theme, or even print-poster work. Even better, its available for purchase for only €10! Head over to the RBI website and check it out. If you want to try it out first, RBI is offering a free limited sample you can download here.

Tweet

Fizz or Fame: 10 Design Trend Predictions For 2014

Yes it’s that time of the year again, closing time where every design blog under the sun pulls out the crystal ball in an attempt to make some form of definitive predictions for the coming new-year.
As with any prediction, it’s never 100% accurate, no matter the amount of market research involved. However if you keep your ear low enough to ground, you should be able to make some educated assumptions.

Tweet

30 Nostalgia Evoking 8-bit Pixel-Art Designs

 Do you remember the good old days of the 80’s and 90’s? When life was simpler, the sun shined brighter, you spent more time outdoors and used AltaVista as a search engine.

Do you remember playing DK and two-player Double Dragon on Nintendo or Prince of Persia on the Macintosh ? Do you remember going to the local arcade because the graphics were better and screens were bigger?

I remember when I was about 8 years old, I arrived home from school on day, only to find our house had been robbed. Much to my brother and I’s despondency, a colossal void lay center of the living room where our Nintendo had resided. It was a loss evocative of the damage caused by a boy losing his pet dog, leaving my brother and me with faces like a wet week-end. A few of days later, upon arriving home from school again, a pleasant surprise awaited me in the living room. A brand-spanking new Super Nintendo. It shined like the Holy Grail in a da Vinci painting, totally inundating the void that was left previously. Dad had secretly gone off and bought it for us. Boy, that was one of the greatest days of my early childhood, a memory I will never forget.

Of course you may remember it differently, depending on your age and cultural background etc.. but that’s pretty much my recollection of the times. Whatever your memory does serve up, one thing’s for sure, if you played video-games back then you would distinctly remember 8-bit style graphics and rending.

So what better way to spark reminiscence than some old-school, retro 8-bit style poster designs. Today I’ve scoured the web to bring you this awesome collection. Enjoy.

Tweet

Create a Simple Letterpress Effect in Photoshop

In this tutorial we will be creating a simple and sleek letterpress effect using Photoshop. Recently, I have been asked quite a few times on how to create this effect, so I decided to write a tutorial. It’s a pretty simple effect really. There are plenty of different methods to achieve the desired effect. This is by far the simplest.

Tweet

75+ Best Creative Animated GIFs for Your Inspiration

Animated GIFs are one of the hottest topics on the web today and for good reason too. In a tiny 3 second GIF image lays a whole lot of – often unappreciated – design work.
GIFs were once the subject of much criticism, being synopsis with cheap, often intrusive and annoying advertising.

Tweet

10 Simple and Elegant Concept Redesigns

User interface redesigns are a great way to show off your design style and skills, particularly if you can build on and visually streamline a product in a logical and beneficial manner. Today, many designers are featuring concept redesigns as part of their portfolio and a large amount of them opt for flat variants on popular interfaces.

Tweet

Free Download: Dripicons Line Icons

Ever since the release of iOS7, line-icons have become increasingly popular. So with release of the iPhone 5s and 5c yesterday, we thought it natural to share this free download.

Tweet