All About Fonts

I have this secret obsession with fonts. If I'm not careful, I will find myself with a hard drive so full of fonts that it takes twenty minutes just to boot. Then, of course, I have a horrible time trying to choose between various fonts when it comes time to actually use them. I figure that it's healthier than my other obsession, though--with potato chips--so I don't yet feel the need to work too hard on curbing my font enthusiasm--luckily for you! The following links will help you leave your mark on any project.

Free-fonts.com: This site claims a search engine indexing 55,000 different fonts, both free and not.
WhatTheFont: A subsection of Free-fonts.com, WhatTheFont allows you to upload a font sample for identification. There's also a link to a forum where other font-lovers may be able to help.
Myfont.de: I don't speak German, but that didn't stop me from accidentally downloading six different fonts while researching this article before forcibly closing the browser window to prevent further procrastination. Must go back soon for more goodies.
Larabie Fonts: I've always liked this one a lot, and it's completely free.
Dafont: The fonts at this site are extensively categorized, making it easy to find what you're looking for.
Font Leech: A growing index, presented in blog format, of links regarding fonts.
Goodfonts.org: Over 300 different fonts, specifically for web designers.
My First Font: These lovely free fonts are all well and good, but wouldn't it be neat if you could have a font of your own handwriting? Font creation is not out of your reach! All you need is a good tutorial.. and here it is.
Microsoft Typography: Microsoft thinks it knows something about everything. In this case, there's a lot of good technical information, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

Most of the above sites will have instructions for installing your new toys, but a general guideline is that the files you download should be placed in C:WindowsFonts (or similar) when using Windows, or into ~/Library/Fonts if you have a Mac OS X. If the files are zipped, you need to unzip them first, of course. Now that you have plenty of fonts to play with, go wild with them! Add your own flair to letters and signs and banners and scrapbook pages and anything else that you might be into. (Just make sure you check the creator's licensing policy before using it for commercial ventures!)