Awesome Autumnal Assets

Fall—or autumn if you prefer—when days get shorter, evening air feels crisper, and everything is pumpkin-spiced. It’s lurking around the corner, can you smell it? Time to grab the fleece jacket, order up an apple cider, and check out some free—or very inexpensive—typefaces and goodies with an autumnal flair to them.

What is it about fall that makes us want to sit outside a cafe, bundled up, drinking apple cider? Oh, right…the apple cider. The Appleberry typeface (free for personal use and $5 for a commercial license) would be right at home on the cafe’s chalkboard menu.

The Janda Apple Cobbler typeface would be no stranger on that cafe menu, either. There are two fonts in the set, which is free for personal use. A commercial license is whatever you want to donate.

The oddly-named Death in the Shadows typeface is reminiscent of 1960s horror film posters: a little artsy, a little mysterious. Though it’s free to use for personal use, the creator asks to be contacted for commercial use. They also are very specific on where you CAN’T use the typeface (sexual content, politics, and religion to start).

The same creator offers the Wolf in the City typeface, with the same licensing terms. In my head, I see this emblazoned on a fluffy sweater at a football tailgate party. Go Team!

And what’s a list of autumn-y type without the cliched dripping blood? The aptly-named Face Your Fears typeface is a pretty decent working of the old bloody standby and available for a donation.

To me, fall means Halloween and classic scary, often cheesy, movies and TV Shows. The Addams Family might not be on the top of that list, but the Fiddums Family typeface—which is free, even for commercial use—captures the faux-horror of that classic perfectly.

Another donationware typeface, Fright Night, is definitely along the same Halloween (wait for it) vein. It’s a simple hand-written—or rather hand-scratched—typeface that would be at home on a Halloween poster, or even a chalkboard at a bakery.

The free Future Timesplitters typeface is based on the popular (at least that’s what the kids tell me) first-person shooter Timesplitters. Whatever its origin, this typeface that’s free for any use is whimsical enough for a kid’s Halloween party, yet classy enough for Thanksgiving placecards.

The less-than-creatively-named Haunted House typeface has the “creepy sign on a hidden cabin in the woods” feel to it. It’s decent and free for personal use, but a commercial license will set you back $15.

If haunted cabins aren’t your style, you might try the free collection of leafy dingbats that come with wmleaves1. There are 19 individual glyphs depicting autumn foliage available for personal use only.

The 2 Peas Fall Dingbats collection offers nearly 40 hand-drawn sketches of pumpkins, acorns, leaves, and fall messages. Unfortunately, the license is listed as unknown, so tread lightly and assume it’s probably a personal use only license.

Sticking with the hand-drawn look, check out this vintagey (that’s totally a word) hand-drawn set of autumn icons. Included in the $9 license—which covers personal and commercial use—are leaves, mushrooms, apples, and a picnic basket. That’s Americana in vectors right there!

If you’re looking for artwork with a Halloween flair, the Hipster Halloween icon and elements set brings a little silliness to the dark holiday. The set of vectors—which includes bespectacled pumpkins and cats—will run you $7.

Also on the light side of Halloween, this set of 15 icons is $5 and has all the spooky fare presented in bright colors: ravens, witch hats, cauldrons, ghosts, and gravestones. Each icon is contained in one PSD file and also broken out into 4 icon-sized PNG files.

Celebrating late autumn in the US means feasts and harvest and Thanksgiving. This set of autumn vectors contains leaves, acorns, and autumn-hued backgrounds and banners to spruce up your Thanksgiving invitations and placecards. The $8 license allows you to incorporate the designs into personal and commercial products.

Erica Gamet has been involved in the graphics industry for over 35 years. She is a speaker, writer, trainer, and content creator focusing on Adobe InDesign, Apple Keynote, and varied production topics. She is a regular presenter at CreativePro Week, regular contributor to CreativePro Magazine, and has spoken at Canada’s ebookcraft, Adobe MAX, and Making Design in Oslo, Norway. Find Erica online at the CreativePro YouTube channel, CreativeLive.com and through her own YouTube channel. When she isn’t at her computer she’s probably daydreaming about travel or living in a Nordic noir landscape.

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