How to identify the font in a logo or an old design

It comes up all the time. You need a new tagline under the logo, a different year on last season's shirt, or a second sign that matches the first. The file is a flat image, the designer is long gone, and the only clue to the font is the lettering itself.

Identifying a font from a picture is very doable, and mostly free. It works best when you know how to prepare the sample and how to read the results.

Step 1: get the cleanest sample you can

Font identification tools compare letter shapes. The better they can see the shapes, the better the match.

• Use the biggest, sharpest copy you have. A scan or a straight-on photo beats a screenshot of a thumbnail.
• Crop to one line of text in a single font.
• Make it level. Rotate the image so the text sits on a horizontal line.
• Boost the contrast. Dark letters on a plain light background are ideal. If the text is on a photo or texture, convert it to black and white first.
• Remove effects if you can. Outlines, shadows, bevels and distress textures confuse the matching.
• Pick distinctive letters. A sample with g, a, R, Q, y, e and numbers tells the tool far more than "ILLINOIS."

If letters are touching, as in tight script or heavy outlines, add a little space between them or expect to guide the tool by hand.

Step 2: run it through an identifier

These are the tools worth using. All have free versions.

• WhatTheFont (MyFonts): upload the image, confirm the letters it detected, and it returns close matches, mostly commercial fonts.
• WhatFontIs: a larger database that includes free fonts, with a filter to show only free or only commercial results.
• Font Squirrel Matcherator: good at finding free alternatives and handles more than one font in an image.
• Adobe Fonts: if you use Creative Cloud, its visual search and the Match Font feature in Photoshop search Adobe's library.
• Identifont: no image needed. It asks questions about the letter shapes, which helps when your sample is too poor to upload.

Try at least two. They have different databases, and the right answer often shows up in only one.

Step 3: confirm the match

The tools give you candidates, not a verdict. Many fonts look alike at a glance and differ in the details. Check these before you trust a match:

• the lowercase a and g: one story or two?
• the tail of the Q and the leg of the R
• the e: is the bar level or slanted?
• the dots on i and j: round or square?
• the ends of c, s and t: cut straight or at an angle?
• the numbers, especially 1, 4 and 7

The best test is direct. Type the same words in the candidate font, set it to the same size, and lay it over the original at half transparency. If it's the right font, the letters line up. If only some do, you've found a relative, not a match.

Why you sometimes get no match

If three tools all return near misses, there's usually a reason.

• It's custom lettering. Many logos, especially scripts and badge-style designs, were drawn by hand. There's no font to find.
• A real font was modified. Designers stretch, slant, thicken and join letters. Stretched text is the most common case: the font exists, but not in that shape.
• The font is old or obscure. Sign shops and print shops used fonts that were never sold online.
• The image is too degraded. Soft, pixelated edges hide the details that separate one font from another.

Close enough, or exact?

Be honest about which one you need.

If the new text will sit on its own, like an address line on a flyer, a font from the same family or a close alternative is usually fine. Nobody will compare them letter by letter.

If the new text sits right next to the old text, as in changing a name or a year inside an existing design, a near match shows. The eye picks up the different weight or spacing immediately. In that case the choice is an exact font match or redrawing the letters to fit.

A word on licenses

Finding the name of a font doesn't give you the right to use it. Commercial fonts need a license, and the license type matters if you're putting the text on products you sell. Many identifiers will also suggest free fonts that are close. Check that "free" includes commercial use before you print anything.

What to do once you know the font

You still can't type into a flat image. Changing text in a PNG or JPG means removing the old letters, rebuilding the background behind them, setting the new text in the matched font and blending it in with the same color, outline, curve and texture. The font is the first half of the job.

The short version

Crop a clean, level, high-contrast sample with distinctive letters. Run it through two identifiers. Confirm by overlaying the candidate on the original. If nothing matches, it's probably custom or modified lettering, and the answer is to redraw rather than keep searching.

If you'd rather hand the whole thing over, that's a service we offer. We match the font where one exists, redraw the letters where it doesn't, and return the design with the new text in place. See how it works: change text in a design.