As you know, all Studio contests carry the following notice about fonts:

Note: All non-standard fonts must be declared within your submission. Include the name of the font and a link to where it can be downloaded/purchased (commercial fonts only). DO NOT include any font files in your submission or source files.

The information below contains a list of the Studio Standard fonts we allow, along with helpful information about how to use non-standard fonts and how to handle fonts in logo contests.

TopCoder Studio’s Standard Font List for Screening:

Here is a list of fonts (browser-safe and standard fonts from CS2) that you can use in Studio competitions without providing the font information within your submission file. If you use a font that is not on this list, you must declare the font within your submission by listing the font’s name and a link to purchase/download the font. See “Non-Standard Font Use” below.

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Adobe Caslon Pro
Adobe Garamond Pro
Arial
Arial Black
Bernhard Modern Std
Book Antiqua
Century Old Style Std
Chaparral Pro
Charlemagne Std
Comic Sans MS
Courier New
Courier Std
Georgia
Impact
Lucida Console
Lucida Sans Unicode
Letter Gothic Std
Lithos Pro
Minion Pro
MS Sans Serif
MS Serif
Myriad Pro
Myriad Pro Condensed
News Gothic Std
Nueva Std
Palatino Linotype
Tahoma
Times New Roman
Trajen Pro
Trebuchet MS
Verdana
Viva Std

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Non-Standard Font Use:
If you plan to use a font that is not part of the standard list we use for screening, the contest holder and Studio submissions screener will need some information about the font. You will provide that information when you submit by “declaring” your fonts, but you should first take the following steps:

1) Determine where the contest holder can download or purchase the font. If you are using a font from a “free” font site, be sure the font can be used for commercial purposes (do not use fonts that say “for personal use only.” or your submission may fail screening ).

2) Ask your contest holder in the forums what operating system they are using and if they can support the font you wish to use. (Some fonts for Mac can’t work on Windows and vise versa). For print contests, they may need to also check with their printer. If your contest holder does not know the answers or does not respond, you may need to swap the font out during Final Fixes if the contest holder cannot download and install the font you used.

When submitting, you must declare the font name and URL where the font can be purchased/downloaded. (See this page for screenshots of the declarations screen). If you do not include this information, your submission will fail screening. Please note: if your font URL leads to a suspicious website (such as a torrent site, non-English site, etc.) your submission may fail screening.

WebDings, Zapf and Other Symbol Fonts
You must not use symbol fonts as design elements unless the font was solely created by you. Symbol fonts are considered third party elements and are prohibited unless the contest specifically allows them.

Flattening Layers/Rasterizing Text:
Please do NOT rasterize text or flatten layers containing text. It is important to allow all text to be editable by the client when they receive the source files.

Logo Contests

When submitting to a logo contest, you will declare yoru fonts and it is best to have the following information in your SOURCE zip file:

1) The IA/EPS logo file with text intact (not outlined)
2) The IA/EPS logo file with text in outlined format.

If you do not submit the files listed above, your submission may fail screening (depending on the contest) and/or you may have to make changes in Final Fixes before you can be paid.

Other Helpful Information:

Popular “Free” Font Sites:
http://dafont.com
http://www.fontsquirrel.com/

Fonts on Your System:
Not sure which of your fonts are “standard” for your OS and which are not? Search for default fonts by OS and Windows products here: http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fonts/
(Also shows fonts that come with Adobe CS4 and Mac OS X 10.5)

This site will show you all of the fonts on your system within a web browser: http://flippingtypical.com/