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Spooky Fonts to Use for Halloween

Check out these horror-themed, whimsical, distorted and textured fonts to use in your spooky Halloween design projects.

Brand Design
October 3, 2023
5
min

Table of Contents

It’s spooky season, and your ads and social media posts can probably use some funky lettering to acknowledge it. Check out these Halloween fonts that will delight your audience.

October is here and with it the holiday spirit. Sure, you might not be able to throw a Halloween party, but you and your business can create cool ads and social media posts with scary fonts and typography that will help spread some holiday cheer… or chills.

Check out these fonts that will ensure a fun Halloween.

Creepy and horror Halloween fonts

What’s a spooky Halloween with no horror references? These fonts look like they are taken straight out of a classic slasher poster, or an arthouse indie horror film.

1. October Crow (free for commercial use)

If Halloween aesthetic to you means the 80s and 90s horror movies, gothic lore and spider webs, this creepy font in all uppercase might do the trick. Inspired by 1994’s “The Crow”, the designer turned it into a desktop font that can be perfect to use for greeting cards, Halloween party invitations, and any sort of commercial need.

october crow.jpg

2. Halloween Too (free for personal use)

The dripping blood text effect on this typeface makes for a perfect horror font. This handwritten font also comes in uppercase and lowercase, so you can experiment with it more.

halloween too.jpg

3. Goat (free for commercial use)

This decorative gothic font is high-quality, sophisticated, yet somewhat spooky. The beautifully arched capital letters that are based on Gothic architecture are unlike any others on this list, making Goat one of the most high-quality free Halloween fonts.

goat.jpg

4. Earwig Factory (free for commercial use)

If you’re planning on a themed Halloween party, or base your designs on a serial killer murder mystery flick, Earwig Factory checks all the marks. It is a jumbled alphabet mounted on background cards, resembling ransom letters in mystery thrillers.

earwig factory.jpg

5. Nightmare 5 (free for personal use)

As the name suggests, this Halloween font will be perfect for your Halloween projects. It has a retro poster design-like aesthetic, with condensed lettering and a slight texture. If you need it for your marketing efforts, however, you’ll have to buy a commercial license.

nightmare 5.jpg

Whimsical fonts that will spruce up your Halloween designs

Not everything needs to be creepy to be eligible for your Halloween design projects. If you need to appeal to a more family targeted audience or nostalgics that would rather watch Tim Burton films instead of horrors, here are some quirky and magical fonts to use.

6. Alice in Wonderland (free for personal use)

Although not the official one, this font was inspired by Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland” film. It might not exactly be a spooky font, but if you’ve read Alice in Wonderland, you’re well aware there’s enough jump scares and whimsical magic in it. This is a cute serif font that will fit great for your Halloween needs.

alice in wonderland.jpg

7. Burton’s Nightmare (free for commercial use)

Yet another Burton-inspired font, this time from “Nightmare Before Christmas”. This playful calligraphy font is elegant, yet decorative. It comes in both uppercase and lowercase, so you can play with it in many different variations. It will definitely lend a movie poster quality to your designs.

burtons nightmare.jpg

8. Billy Witch (purchase only)

This spellbinding swirly serif font is perfect for Halloween, since that is exactly what the designers had in mind when creating it. It has two variations: regular and italic, and comes with a few formats (OTF, TTF and WOFF) and additional glyphs.

It has decorative swirly serifs but is also jagged, sharp and pointy. This gives it an old and traditional feel yet is distressed in a modern, angular way adding a contemporary twist.

billy witch.jpg

9. Nightmare Pumpkins (purchase only)

This bulky and wavy font is inspired by the spooky season, and perfect to apply on clothing design, logos, posters, prints, etc. it has multi-language support, so those of you who are looking for a fun and decorative Halloween font in another alphabet, grab this one.

nightmare pumpkins.jpg

10. HalloWitchZ (free for personal use)

This unique display font can fit even beyond the seasonal designs, but also on magic and fiction books and art. The varying sizes and bulkiness of each letter make it playful and unpredictable, lending a fun and quirky quality to any design.

HalloWitchZ.jpg

Distorted fonts

If you want an unusual and more minimalist font family than the ones we already mentioned, you can decide to go with a distorted or glitchy font. Here are some you could use.

11. Bad Signal (free for personal use)

This cool glitchy font is perfect to use on a t-shirt, poster, or motion graphics. It is simple and sans-serif, so apart from the distorted effect, it is a classic and versatile typeface that you can use in different designs.

bad signal.jpg

12. Marola (free for commercial use)

If you want a sort of a three-dimensional effect in your designs, Marola is a font that will create an illusion of waviness. It might not necessarily be a typical Halloween font, but it is sort of spooky. And as far as free fonts go, this one is pretty unique and unusual.

marola.jpg

13. Glitch City (free for personal use)

If your idea of a thematic spooky Halloween somehow merges with a cyberpunk/sci-fi aesthetic, Glitch City is a font straight out of this niche genre. It would also look amazing in motion.

glitch city.jpg

Textured and retro fonts

Bloody, muddy, rusty and creepy… Some texture effects can add extra spookiness, and these fonts have it!

14. Face Your Fears (free for personal use)

Take the “creepy” button and turn it up a notch with this textured font, that looks like writing in blood. It is perfect for your scary design projects, but definitely not suitable for any age demographic.

face your fears.jpg

15. Furgatorio (free for commercial use)

This 3D textured font reminds me of ancient ruin scriptures and old puzzle games. Perfect for a thematic design. Even the different styles of the font family are named after classic horror films (Annabelle, Chucky, Nosferatu, Frankenstein…).

furgatorio

16. Dreadful (purchase only)

Finally, we have Dreadful, a layered typeface inspired by classic horror movies and vintage comics. It is best used for headings, apparel design, invitations, flyers, posters, greeting cards, etc.

witchcraft.jpg

We hope this selection of spooky fonts helped you think of a cool Halloween design. If not, let our designers at ManyPixels take care of all your needs. Learn more about our risk-free unlimited graphic design service.

Journalist turned content writer. Based in North Macedonia, aiming to be a digital nomad. Always loved to write, and found my perfect job writing about graphic design, art and creativity. A self-proclaimed film connoisseur, cook and nerd in disguise.

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