Best Nautical Fonts
Sailing, the ocean, and everything to do with seafaring comes with its own lore. The distinct style you expect from our long and historical relationship with the seven seas has also been distilled into certain types of letter fonts. It is a tricky style to replicate effectively with other types of font faces. So suppose you own a seafood restaurant, a pirate story project, or you have some other product or business with a nautical theme, you will want certain font styles that will fit your banner or your logo.
Here we have some of the best styles for the job, curated from designers all over the Web. Whether you’re looking for something funny, something serious, or something that just works, you’ll find it here.
Vintage Nautical Font
Nautical Rope Font
Nautical Script Font
Nautical Calligraphy Font
Free Nautical Font
What Makes a Nautical Font?
The word nautical tends to evoke, most of all, sailors and the whole tradition of seafaring and maritime navigation. This can show in your art in the most obvious “Ahoy!” ways and more subtle, creative ways.
How you accomplish this effect depends on how well you can mix and match your chosen font with other recognizable nautical elements:
- The color blue (combined with white and/or red is also popular)
- Lighthouses
- Anchors
- Boats, ships, and other sea vessels
- Life rafts
- Ropes (called “sheets” in sailor jargon)
- Fish, shells, seaweed, other marine and seashore life
- Cargo and shipment stencil lettering (see Nautical Sans Serif Font)
Combined with these elements, something as simple as the clean-cut Nautical Script Font or even the Free Nautical Font can be made unmistakably seaworthy.
- With the right lettering, you can give a sense of fable and fun sailor whimsy.
- Best examples for this are the “Shifty Sailor” Vintage Nautical Font, the Nautical Cursive Font, and the “Seaworthy” Nautical Ocean Font.
- For something more solemn and staid as befits the Navy, use a cleaner font tacked onto some representative visuals.
- For one great example, see the Nautical Lettering Font, which also makes for a perfect seaman’s tattoo.
In all these ways, the theme can evolve creatively within some constraints and still stay itself. It is the same with Tattoo Fonts and Gothic Fonts—you just know it when you see it.
Nautical Sans Serif Font
Nautical Lettering Font
Nautical Cursive Font
Nautical Ocean Font
How Do I Use These Fonts Anyway?
This collection brings you some of the best nautical-themed font styles found from all over the place, and they will naturally come with different access, packaging, and usage limitations.
- Some of these fonts will have to be purchased as font files you can type in, at the designer’s price, before you can use them. (The “Shifty Sailor” font goes for $15 USD, but in a pinch, you can try getting the same effect with some great Doodle Fonts.)
- Some fonts, such as the Nautical Cursive Font, can be downloaded and used completely free of charge. And if you don’t want to download it just yet, the website allows you to test-run the script style from the download page. Just type your words into the text field and see how it looks.
- Yet other fonts are merely screenshots that can serve as inspiration. It’s always good to know your options and what’s possible.
Some caveats:
- Some host sites like Shutterstock.com requires you to create an account before you can gain access to any of their downloads.
- When using for commercial projects, always make it a habit of checking your resources for any licensing restrictions that may apply.
Don’t forget to check out Template.net’s design archives for even more resources for all your art and design needs.