Identifying Fonts on the Go

May 18th, 2009 at 8:00 AM - TMO Quick Tip by Jeff Gamet

Fonts are an important part of any printed message from advertisements and store signs to Web sites, magazines and books. If you happen to see a font you really like when you are out and about, you can use your iPhone to find out what it's called -- as Apple says, there's an app for that.

Highlight text in your photos so WhatTheFont knows what to check out.

To identify fonts with your iPhone, you'll need the WhatTheFont application. It's available for free at Apple's iTunes-based App Store.

Verify the WTF is correctly recognizing each letter.

Once the app is installed on your iPhone, you can use its built-in camera to snap a photo of the font you want to identify. WhatTheFont lets you verify that it correctly identified the letters in your photo, then it compares them to its online database and presents you with the most likely matches.

Even if WhatTheFont can't find an exact match, it will most likely come up with some very similar fonts for you to check out.

WTF displays potential font matches.

WhatTheFont is a handy tool for anyone that appreciates type and fonts, and it's really useful for designers that want to identify the fonts they see for use in their own projects.