Do you find yourself staring at other designer’s logo and immediately try to decipher what typeface they are using? If you are a designer, it is probably an inevitable habit. There are no hard and fast rules to help you determine which typeface you should land on for your logo. And due to the fact that we are showered with thousands of free fronts on the Internet, deciding on the ideal font to use can be a challenging task.

If you have experimented hundreds of fonts but they just don’t work out right for you, suffering from design block where you don’t what font to use or you are just curious on what fonts others are using for their logo, this article is for you. Today we have analyzed some top brands of their respective industry and reveal the font they used in their logo. They may give you some raw ideas for your next logo design; try not to replicate :)

Zopa.com

Many top websites are trending towards gray color schemes with bright color splashes. The Zopa logo and overall image is a perfect example of this trend.

Font used: Frankfurter medium

Shutterfly

Shutterfly’s modern logo is simple, refined and playful. This image shows that life is too fast to take it too seriously. Their use of bright colors is consistent with the latest website trends and is effective at enhancing their overall image.

Font used: Frutiger

NewsGator

Multi-colored logo fonts are all the rage these days as shown in NewsGator’s logo.

Font used: ITC Bauhaus

Shoutwire

Many caution against excessive capitalization in logo fonts. However, Shoutwire’s use of a font in all caps shows that those who caution against this trend can be wrong.

Font used: Agency Bold

Shozu

This is an ultra-modern design consistent with the styles of current top websites. When your font is paired with playful colors, you are sure to grab the viewer’s attention.

Font used: FF Cocon Bold

Facebook

Elegant and straight-sided characters on the dark-blue background are easy to recognize: Facebook is the perfect example of minimal, yet most recognizable logo!

Font used: Klavika

Twitter

Light-blue letters with rounded corners:here you go! Now you can spoof the famous Twitter logo!

Font used: Pico Alphabet

Digg

Unlike the above font, this one has no rounded corners at all: everything is sharp and diagonal here giving the perfect feel of the original logo.

Font used: Pico y

Cork’d

A very cheerful font with attention to details in every letter – it makes a perfect fit for the Cork’d logo.

Font used: Triplex

Vimeo

A bold italic font somehow resembles handwriting. It is almost a universal font that can match any interface easily.

Font used: Black Rose

Last.FM

A very elegant narrow characters with rounded borders makes a great fit for the music-related website.

Font used: National

Technorati

Technorati logo sports a very minimal readable font which might lose identity when taken out of the context.

Font used: Neo Sans Medium

Flickr

Named after its designer, Adrian Frutiger, the font is used in frequently used in various logos and advertising campaigns. What makes it stand out in Flickr logo is the famous blue/ pink color combination.

Font used: Frutiger

Youtube

A straight diagonal font on a red background is one of the easiest to spoof.

Font used: Alternate Gothic No. 2

Google

The font has a somewhat calligraphic feel with contrasting stroke weights and distinctive serifs. Play a bit with colors and you have an exact copy of Google logo!

Font used: Catull BQ

Yahoo

This one is the easiest to spoof: they have their own original font you can download and use!

Font used: Yahoo Font

Hulu

No extra details: smooth lines with rounded corners make up a very elegant font.

Font used: Futura MDd BT

TMZ

TMZ logo features a very effective use of the Amelia font which makes it one of the most recognizable fonts out there.

Font used: Amelia

Linked-in

Myriad Pro Bold is used in many contexts but has become very popular from the LinkedIn brand.

Font used: Myriad Pro Bold

Skype

The smooth lines of this font with characters a bit smashed to each other make a very unique combination.

Font used: Helvetica Rounded Bold

Revision 3

What makes this font recognizable is the effective use of the logo right inside the brand name.

Font used: VAG Rounded Black

Ferrari

Ferrari has a very stylish font: letters seem to match one another so well that you can’t imagine they can exist separately.

Font used: Ferro Rosso

Heineken

Like Yahoo! logo, this one requires no effort to spoof. Just use its original font designed by Jeroen Klaver.

Font used: Heineken

Swatch

Swatch sports a very interesting use of the most famous font: its narrow rounded lines imply the Swiss accuracy.

Font used: Swatch it

Time

A narrow diagonal very clear and readable font definitely reminds of a print industry.

Font used: Times New Roman

Absolut

Dark blue bold font has smooth rich lines and implies luxury.

Font used: Futura Condensed ExtraBold or Absolut Vodka