It isn't that easy to find the best free graffiti fonts. This is partly because it's pretty tricky to define what makes a graffiti font. The word 'graffiti' means something different today to a few decades ago. Although the word used to be associated with scrawled, ugly obscenities and inner-city blight, the rise of creative and thoughtful (not to mention valuable) street art has changed perspective on the art form and brought it into the mainstream.

You'll now see work that's taken inspiration from street art all around you, encompassing everything from advertising to album art. The popularity surge means there's an abundance of themed graffiti fonts to use in your projects. With forms from spraypaint and splatter to brush lettering and stencil styles, we've got it all covered.

In this post, we've collated the best graffiti font we could find from across the web, but if you're on the lookout for a different kind of font, why not check out our free fonts or free script fonts posts? Or you could continue the urban vibe and explore our pick of street art.

01. Rusto Fat Cap Brush

The Behance community love this neon font (Image credit: Luis Di Lascio/Patri Pérez)

Rusto Fat Cap Brush is a personal project from designers Luis Di Lascio and Patri Pérez. With a flowing spraypaint style, it's bold and colourful and can be downloaded for free from Dropbox (you need an account).

02. Sprite

Legible and approachable (Image credit: FontFabric)

This is a functional font, that is totally legible whilst keeping the graffiti feel, in a brushstroke style. Built for a wide audience, it is an approachable way of adding an urban edge to your project.

03. Urban Decay

Urban Decay has all you need from a graffiti font (Image credit: Zofos on DaFont)

Urban decay is a handmade brush font that creator Zofos made to 'celebrate graffiti, urban exploration, street calligraphy and inner city living.' This font is one of the best graffiti fonts we've seen, with a rugged authenticity that will bring an urban feel to your projects. It's free to download but donations are welcome.

04. Philly Sans

Philly Sans is a versatile font with a graffiti edge (Image credit: Philatype on 1001Fonts)

A heavy, lowercase-only font that has a grafitti feel whilst being super clear to read, Philly Sans is certainly versatile. Made by Philatype, it is a great typeface for display and is totally free for personal use.

05. Hoodson Script

The Hoodson Script comes with extras (Image credit: Hendra Dirtyline on Pixelify)

With a bouncy baseline and a perfectly paired complimentary marker font, this retro style graffiti font comes with handy bonus swashes. Created by Hendra Dirtyline (Dirtyline Studio), it is free for personal use or $17 for a commercial license.

06. The Graffiti Font

A handmade font, this is graffiti at its finest (Image credit: Mike Carolos)

This colourful bubble writing packs a vibrant punch. Created by graphic designer Mike Karolos, this font is totally free and although it is only available in a png format (it's not keyable), it does also come in a black and white option.

07. Knight Brush

Knight Brush is adaptable and bold with realistic brush strokes (Image credit: Hendra Pratama on FreeFonts)

Inspired by the vintage era, Hendra Pratama created this font with hand-painted signage in mind. This adaptable font is made to resemble real brush strokes and is a bold choice. The free version is a demo for personal use only, and you can download the full commercial option for $15.

08. Fat Wandals

Get your chisel tip on (Image credit: Mans Greback on DaFont)

Fat Wandals, created by Mans Greback, is a free, personal use-only version of his Wandals font family. It's a great-looking script font with lovely flowing strokes that look like they've been done with a chisel-tip marker, and it comes with a full set of characters with loads of variants and all the punctuation you'll need.

09. Don Graffiti

Don Graffiti's nicely urban but still big and friendly (Image credit: Don Marciano on DaFont)

Created by Don Marciano, Don Graffiti is an old-school graffiti font that's ideal for giving any project that extra urban touch. It's an all-caps font that comes as an .OTF file featuring 197 glyphs with variants, numbers and punctuation.

10. Scare Arms

Don't be afraid; you're already dead (Image credit: Chequered Ink on FontSpace)

Put the frighteners on with this graffiti font from Chequered Ink. It's an all-caps, horror-inspired offering with a scratchy, eroded look to it, making it ideal for drumming up some scares, and it's free for personal use.

11. Grizzly Attack

Get busy with the grizzly (Image credit: Rometheme on DaFont)

If grizzly bears decided to try their paws at graffiti by scratching directly onto the wall with their claws, then it might look something like this striking script font by Rometheme. It's all-caps, with numerals and a decent selection of extra characters.

12. Crevice Stencil

Crevice Stencil is edgy yet elegant (Image credit: Chequered Ink on FontSpace)

A stencil font that steers an original path between ornate and edgy, Crevice Stencil is a free font created for the community by Bath design studio Chequered Ink. You can use this font for free in personal projects, but if you want to use it for commercial purposes you’ll need to purchase a licence.

13. Mersey Cowboy

Get messy with Mersey Cowboy (Image credit: Chequered Ink on FontSpace)

Another font from Chequered Ink, this one’s more closely aligned with the splatter side of graffiti. Mersey Cowboy is a great choice if you want your type to look messy and chaotic, but still very readable. Again, this graffiti font is free for personal use, but you’ll need to shell out for a licence to use it commercially.

14. Nebulous

Nebulous takes a grungy approach to stencil-style typography (Image credit: Highlight on FontSpace)

Nebulous is a decorative free font that brings a touch of distressed sci-fi chic to the stencil font category. Created by Brazilian designer Pobrenerd, this font is free for both personal and commercial use.

15. Black Top

Black Top provides an artful take on scrawled graffiti (Image credit: Six Above Studios on FontSpace)

If you’re looking for that artfully scrawled look, then handwritten graffiti style font Black Top could be the answer to your prayers. Brought to you by SixAbove Studios, a creative agency from Connecticut, USA, it includes alternates, ligatures and bonus elements. Note that this font is free for personal use only.

16. Humger

Humger brings a gritty flavour to old-school stencil fonts (Image credit: Wassim Awadallah )

Heavily influenced by old-school stencilling, Humger is a gritty, uppercase, narrow textured typeface. It was created by Lebanese designer Wassim Awadallah, who's offering it up for free for use in both personal and commercial projects.

17. Sloppy Paint

Sloppy Paint is fluorescent, fun and downright fabulous (Image credit: Darrell Flood on FontSpace)

Sloppy Paint looks exactly like it sounds, replete with happy, day-glo colours and fat, cartoony shapes. Created by Japanese game designer Darrell Flood, aka dadiomouse, this graffiti font is free to to download for your personal use, Flood asks that a minimum of $10 be donated for commercial use.

18. Thickedy Grunge

Thickedy Grunge is free only for personal use (Image credit: Chequered Ink on FontSpace)

Another great font that looks exactly as its name suggests. Another font created by Bath design studio Chequered Ink, it’s free for personal use, but if you want it for a commercial project you’ll need to buy a licence.

19. Fibre

All-caps font fibre is earthy and authentic, yet still easy to read (Image credit: WildOnes Design )

Fibre is a handwritten, all-caps font with a wild and scratchy feel to it. At the same time, the kerning and font metrics have been designed to provide a clean and easy reading experience, so it's not a case of style over substance. Created by Latvian studio Wild Ones Design, this font is free for personal use in return for your email address.

Next page: 15 more awesome free graffiti fonts