WhatTheFont is the Shazam for fonts, every designer’s dream.
- How many times have you been given a design with very characteristic typefaces and had to use a very similar one (but not the same) because you didn’t know the name of the original?
- How many times have you forgotten a font name out of the thousands you have in your personal library?
- How many times have you had to scan a logo because you didn’t know the name of the typeface?
With WhatTheFont, you will no longer have problems identifying fonts!
What is WhatTheFont?
WhatTheFont is an amazing font search tool that helps you identify fonts by simply uploading an image of the text or screen you are having difficulty recognizing.
WhatTheFont is a tool from the MyFonts website, which is an amazing online resource for downloading professional fonts for any type of project, including printing.
How does WhatTheFont work? It’s simple. Take a photo or screenshot of the font you want to identify and upload the image.
Next, this font identification tool will prompt you to select the text it should recognize. Once the tool processes the image and does its calculations, it will show you a list of all the fonts that are similar to the one you uploaded.
The app is a mobile version of the website developed by MyFonts, and recognizes any font you point your camera at, including a list of similar fonts. It also allows you to purchase the fonts you find directly through MyFonts or even share them on social media.
How to find a font with WhatTheFont
Along with the typeface name, you will find other information such as the typeface author’s name and a button to refer you to the download/purchase page. This will save you tons of time and trouble in finding the resource to download or purchase the font you have found.
WhatTheFont: Upload an image to identify that font
To start working with WhatTheFont, you need to upload an image that clearly shows the typography you want to research.
It’s as easy as selecting the image you want to use and clicking “continue.” But be careful, the image you use has to be large and the letters have to be spaced apart and clear. If the image is small or the letters are not clearly visible, the search will not give you good results.
For example, let’s try with a sans-serif font like a tattoo. The website detects and classifies the letters, allowing you to modify and correct letter by letter. In the images below, you can see that if you separate the “i” from its dot (left image), you can drag the image to “join” the two parts of the letter (right image).
Once you have correctly classified the letters, click on the green arrow and the results will appear, telling you the name and author along with a sample image. If you don’t see any results that match it or if you are not convinced, it may be because the image is too small or the letters are too blurry or close together.
If we try, for example, with a script font we can see that the system has difficulties in detecting the linked lowercase letters (left image) and does not give very accurate results, but rather varied. One way to fix that would be, as I mentioned before, to enlarge the image.
If we choose a rather large image with clear and separated letters, the system can perfectly detect each letter and offer results according to what we are looking for:
What The Font App: How to identify fonts with your iPhone
The usefulness of websites that help us identify fonts online is unquestionable, but if access to these pages is made possible through our iPhone, that usefulness reaches a maximum degree.
For this reason, WhatTheFont has developed an application through which you can identify fonts simply with your iPhone (and obviously its internet connection, either 3G or WiFi).
The process is as follows:
– First, download the application from the AppStore (free, of course): WhatTheFont for iPhone.
– The application invites you to take a photograph of the font you want to identify. If you already have one, select it from the photos library.
– Once you have taken the photograph, you will need to crop the desired area. The application optimizes it for uploading to the internet.
– Once uploaded, continue with the identification process as you would from your computer.
– See the results of the proposed sources on the screen and/or send yourself an e-mail with a link to them.
Simple, fast and effective. In short, WhatTheFont can be useful if you are looking for a specific font or if you urgently need to remember its name.
