18 Gorgeous Gothic Fonts For Displays, Headings, and Logo Design (2024)

Display fonts need to be clear and easy to understand. However, in some cases, you can employ cursive scripts where the design (and the target reader) calls for it. You may need to create a logo for a men’s barbers, focus a brand for bottled alcohol, or hark back a few hundred years. For this, you’ll want to turn to gothic fonts.

In this post, we’re going to look at a number of gothic fonts, and give you our pick of the bunch. Before that, let’s look into what gothic fonts are, and how to find the right one.

What a Gothic Font Is (And What to Look For In an Ideal One)

Gothic fonts have an interesting history, and there are two definitions. The first is through Blackletter – a European typeface from the 12-17th Centuries. In fact, Blackletter is one of the major touchstones of Western typography, along with Italic and Roman types.

It has a number of different names – Gothic miniscule, Blackletter, Old English – and a variety of forms. This is based on the various interpretations across Europe, all of which considered gothic fonts as “barbaric.” For example, Textura, Schwabacher, Fraktur, Cursiva, and Hybrida.

The other term for gothic fonts relates to the Scandinavian “grotesk.” Typefaces based on northern European forms are more like classic sans serif fonts, and in many cases can be interchangeable.

How to Choose Gothic Fonts

Your choice of gothic font will depend on which type you want to use. However, you’ll likely want to use either one as a heading or with larger sizes. For example, a grotesk variant can follow the same rules as other sans serifs for the most part, but it might look too distracting for your body copy.

A central European cursive and script style likely won’t be suitable for body text at all, despite this being a typical use case back in its heyday. These forms can be completely unreadable in many cases, especially at smaller sizes – hence gothic fonts being ‘barbaric.’

Our advice is to consider the application at length. Gothic fonts will be best as a heading or as a logo with a specific target user.

18 Gorgeous Gothic Fonts For Displays, Headings, and Logo Design

Over the rest of this post, we’re going to run down some of the best gothic fonts we can find. Throughout, we’ll also give you an idea of the price of each one, along with where to find them.

Some of these fonts will come from Envato Elements, and won’t have an individual price. However, if you have a valid subscription, you’ll be able to download these fonts, and many more assets to help with your projects.

1. Cambridge

Cambridge looks like an ‘Old English’ variant, and will be best a super large sizes, such as on a poster or sparse design.

It comes with three different formats – OTF, WOFF, and TTF – and includes the standard array of Latin characters, numbers, punctuation, and alternative characters. Cambridge is decorative, and readable at smaller sizes too – surprising for such a cursive serif.

2. Asmath

This next font reminds us of American Horror Story’s Rennie Mackintosh commercial font. However, Asmath comes with a more usable and flexible set of serif characters.

You can use this font in upper- and -lower-case varieties, and it comes with regular, italic, bold, and outline variants. Numbers look fantastic here too, as they have an ‘Oldstyle’ design. In simple terms, this is where numbers will overhang the line, and maybe offer other flourishes too.

For $12, Asmath is a superb font for displays, advertising, packaging, signage, and more. It’s not going to suit many modern applications, unless you want to give off a horror vibe. However, it does the business with the right project.

3. Cheddar Gothic

Cheddar Gothic is an example of the northern European grotesk style. It has eight different styles, that incorporate slab and stencil variations, and italicized options for each.

The font gets its character through hand drawing techniques, and is a ‘all-caps’ style. This means you can switch between upper- and lower-case varieties and get access to hundreds of catchwords, glyphs, icons, and alternative characters.

4. Scotland

It’s time to channel your inner Braveheart, as Scotland is our next gothic font. This won’t have as much versatility as other fonts on this list, but it delivers as an old-school, gothic, Blackletter type.

Scotland will best serve you as a display font. Depending on the context, you could use this on flyers, greeting cards, and even for presentations (such as school reports.) Because Scotland is free, there is no risk to download and try it out too!

5. Medusa Gothic

Medusa Gothic takes Roman lettering and creates “leaf-like ornaments” to create the right mood for book covers, game nights, cosplay event posters, and more. It is an all-caps variant, and toggling between cases can add or subtract these flourishes.

You do have a limited set of punctuation characters though, as the font is not for body copy. Medusa Gothic is a space-hogging display font that is lots of flexibility.

6. Quiska

While most gothic fonts looks like they come straight from a vampire horror film, Quiska has a ‘Victorian’ style that has a surprising level of flexibility.

This serif font has a multitude of flourishes, swashes, and more to bring certain characters (especially uppercase) to life. There are also a number of alternates and ligatures too.

We can see Quiska as the logo type for a cafe, a headline on a poster, a wedding invitation display font, and more. It would also suit packaging, greeting cards, and lots of other applications. For $25, Quiska has lots of versatility.

7. Fenir

An all-caps typeface, Fenir gives off plenty of vintage vibes that could work for music flyers, denim clothing brands, and similar applications.

This gothic font is a sans serif type, and is as similar as they come. You have the ability to toggle between upper- and lower-case for some alternative characters, and little else. It could be perfect if Fenir brings the right vibe for your design.

8. Brut

Budget should be no barrier to a fantastic headline or caption font. Brut can solve these problems, as it costs nothing and has a 70s feel to its lettering. This sans-serif gothic font is an all-caps typeface, and to our eyes recalls Microgramma Bold Extended, which is most famous for its use in Star Trek.

Despite only one casing, Brut is versatile. At huge sizes it’s a great heading font. However, at smaller sizes, you get to use spacing to open up each letter. What’s more, you can better see each letter’s unique shape and composition. Brut may be free, but it’s gorgeous and useable.

9. Killuminati

Fuzzy rock bands will like the look of Killuminati. It borders slightly on the edge of unreadable in places, but has fantastic versatility within the package.

The font is a modern style of Blackletter, and comes with lower-case variants too. With the right kerning, you could employ this one to subheading copy. There are also plenty of alternative characters, glyphs, and multilingual characters.

10. Hurscol

Hurscol doesn’t look like a gothic font, but this hand-drawn, Americana-inspired typeface has all the hallmarks.

It gives off a mid-1900s vibe, and would look great as a logo for second-hand vintage clothes stores. In fact, the bigger the better for this font, as it would suit posters, signs, and general retro designs. If you give it enough space, you could even scale it down to use it on badges and stickers.

11. Stranger Through

Stranger Through is a gothic font that would suit horror-type designs, given the angular shape of the characters.

You won’t use this for body copy, but this sans serif does scale well. The package comes with uppercase variations, numbers, symbols, punctuation, and even provides ‘dingbats.’ These are section dividers or box frame elements – helpful if you need to present your copy.

12. Midwinter Fire

If you took the ITC Benguiat font of Stranger Things, and played it some Black Sabbath albums, you’d get Midwinter Fire. It’s gothic, vintage, and will look great on book or comic covers.

In fact, it has an 80s feel to it – fitting given the apparent inspiration. Midwinter Fire might not have a lot of versatility, but it will fit straight into suitable projects. What’s more, you have a number of underline alternatives too, which will help to build some design and structure into whatever you create.

13. Gorilla Beer

It’s easy to spot how the creators of Gorilla Beer think a user will apply this font. It’s a vintage sans serif type with a set of considered options.

Gorilla Beer will suit logos, and bold text applications. The type foundry’s examples also show t-shirts. Any vintage-type projects – male barbers, coffee houses, craft beer merchants – will work with this font. It might be too ornate for band logos, though.

14. Racula

Racula spices up and waters down a gothic font staple, as it gives off an air of fun and whimsy, despite the core inspiration.

It’s a serif, and comes with a mixture of upper- and lower-case lettering, ligatures, and alternatives. If you want to impart a ‘spooky’ rather than true gothic vibe, maybe for birthday parties, invitations, and children’s Halloween projects, Racula will fit the bill.

15. Vancouver

Another of the grotesk gothic fonts, Vancouver has more in common with the likes of Impact, Helvetica, and Arial. This has more ‘movement’ though, and has a hand-drawn feel.

The font will be ideal for block letting projects, such as posters, headlines, titling, and more. In short, the greater the size you need a font to be, the more Vancouver will suit.

16. Mr Blue Sky

As a complete contrast, Mr Blue Sky is also a gothic font, but this sans-serif is a quirky and playful way to add large point sized lettering to your projects.

The gothic font has summer vibes, which is another contrast to the dark of other Old English and Blackletter typefaces. Logos and posters in particular would be an ideal use case for Mr Blue Sky.

17. Godbless

Godbless represents so-called ‘tattoo fonts’ – a key indicator of how to use this one. It’s one of the more modern styles on this list. You’ll use Godbless on logos and posters too – it gives off the ‘sailor vibes’ but also evokes films such as Indiana Jones and Jumanji.

The font is one where it will stand out more if you use fewer letters. It looks solid, and we love the flourishes and number styling.

18. Millenium

As a grotesk font, Millenium has a similar structure and use cases to Vancouver. It’s a font you’ll use as a big, bold behemoth on posters.

We think there’s a 1960s connection to this font, and you could see it as a heading font for music cover art. Part of this is because of readability, despite it being a condensed typeface. Millenium’s asymmetry also plays into this, and adds a subtle layer of quirkiness that takes the edge off of the harsh, jagged lines.

Wrapping Up

If you have a design that has to make a statement, gothic fonts could be the way you do it. They give off a vibe that’s fantastic for a modern business such as a tattoo parlor or bar. However, you need to choose the right one to stop your creation turning into an unreadable – ‘grotesk’ – mess.

This post gives you lots to choose from in a number of different styles and types. However, our pick goes to Cambridge for its near-perfect Old English style. We like Killuminati too, for similar reasons. With a good gothic font, the vibe it evokes is all important to how it succeeds.

Which of these gothic fonts will you use for your next project? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below!