TAN Songbird Font Free Download

The heart-shaped dot on the i is usually what sends people looking for a TAN Songbird free download, but this 70s-style serif is a commercial font and TanType Co. does not offer an official free or demo version that we could find. You can license it from TanType’s shop on Creative Market, where desktop use costs $17 per seat.

TAN Songbird free download: what you can get officially

The only official source we found is the Creative Market listing, and it sells licences, not a free demo. Searches for TanType Co. releases on MyFonts, DaFont, FontSpace, Behance and Gumroad turned up no free TAN Songbird file either. If a site offers a TAN Songbird free download of the whole font, it is not coming from the designer, and you would have no licence to use it.

Per the listing, buying TAN Songbird gets you TTF, OTF, WOFF and WOFF2 files, multilingual support and free future updates. A desktop licence is $17 per seat; webfont, e-pub and app licences are separate. The listing was created on 19 January 2021 and names TAN Tangkiwood as a sibling font.

Get TAN Songbird — official listing

For clarity: tantype.com is an independent font review site and is not affiliated with TanType Co.

Free download: TAN Songbird (Regular), personal use One style for personal use, shared with the designer’s permission. Commercial use needs a licence.

TAN Songbird specimen and verified specs

• Styles: 1 (Regular)
• File formats: OTF
• Glyphs: 353
• Language support: Basic Latin (English), Western European, Central & Eastern European
• OpenType features: standard ligatures, stylistic alternates, kerning, fractions
• Designer: Novia Jonatan (TanType Co.)

Checked by Tantype from the licensed font files.

Design and character

The designer describes TAN Songbird as “an ode to the 70s retro”, “bold and tightly spaced with soft slightly bulge serif giving it just a good amount of groove”. The specimen above, rendered from the licensed font files, matches that closely. It is a very heavy serif with soft, rounded serifs and almost no sharp corners anywhere.

The “bulge” is easy to spot. Stems in letters like n, h, b and d swell outward near the top and bottom and pull in at the middle, so each letter looks slightly inflated. Bowls are round and counters small, and the letters sit so close together that a word becomes one rolling shape. The playful details are hearts: the dots on i and j are heart-shaped, and so are the dots under the exclamation mark and question mark. The figures are just as heavy and round, and the capital Q has a curling tail.

That density makes TAN Songbird a display face. It reads well in a few words at large size, and its tight fit and small counters are not suited to paragraphs.

What’s in the TAN Songbird package

• Styles: one, Regular.
• Formats: OTF in the licensed files we rendered from; the listing also includes TTF, WOFF and WOFF2.
• Glyphs: 353, covering upper and lowercase, figures, punctuation and accented letters.
• Version: 1.000. Not a variable font.
• Designer: Novia Jonatan, according to the font files, published by TanType Co.

Language support and OpenType features

TAN Songbird covers Basic Latin (English), Western European and Central and Eastern European characters, enough for French, German, Spanish, Polish, Czech and similar languages.

It has four OpenType features, more than many single-style display fonts:

• Kerning tidies the spacing between particular letter pairs. It works automatically almost everywhere.
• Standard ligatures replace certain letter pairs with a joined design. They are switched on by default in Adobe apps, Affinity and web browsers.
• Stylistic alternates are extra versions of some letters. Pick them from the Glyphs panel in Illustrator, InDesign or Photoshop, or the Glyph Browser in Affinity apps.
• Fractions turn 1/2 or 3/4 into proper fractions when you enable the feature in an OpenType panel.

The font stores nothing in the Private Use Area (PUA), so Canva and Cricut Design Space users should know the limits. Those apps cannot switch on stylistic alternates or fractions, and there are no PUA codes to paste in as a workaround. You will see the default letters, hearts included. For the alternates, set the words in an OpenType-capable app and import them as an image or SVG.

Best uses and font pairings

TAN Songbird suits anything that wants warmth and a wink of nostalgia: bakery and ice-cream branding, kids’ products, candle and soap labels, retro T-shirts, playlist covers, party invitations and Valentine’s designs, where the hearts earn their keep.

Pair it with fonts that stay calm next to all that weight:

• Nunito, a rounded sans whose soft ends echo Songbird’s rounded serifs.
• Work Sans for clear body copy and product details.
• Courier Prime for a typewriter accent on labels, tickets or recipe cards.

Licensing: personal vs commercial use

TAN Songbird is sold under Creative Market’s font licences. According to that page, the Desktop licence covers unlimited personal and commercial projects, with one seat per user, and allows the font online only as images. Embedding it on a website needs the Webfont licence with a pageview limit chosen at checkout, while apps and e-books each need their own licence. There are also conditions on logo use. Treat this as a summary, not legal advice.

How to install TAN Songbird

1. Download the zip from your Creative Market purchases and unzip it.
2. Windows: right-click the OTF and choose Install.
3. Mac: double-click the OTF and click Install in Font Book.
4. Restart any open apps. Keep WOFF and WOFF2 for websites only.

Free alternatives to TAN Songbird

These three Google Fonts are free for personal and commercial use, though only one gets close to Songbird’s mood:

• Fraunces is the nearest. It is a variable “soft-serif” family with weight and softness axes, so at its heaviest, softest settings it gains a similar 70s feel. It is wider spaced and has no hearts.
• Cormorant Garamond is a light, high-contrast Garamond. It goes the opposite way, elegant and airy, and suits invitations that want refinement instead of groove.
• Bodoni Moda is a sharp Didone with hairline serifs. It shares the serif skeleton but none of the softness.

TAN Songbird FAQ

Is TAN Songbird free?

No. We found no official TAN Songbird free download or demo. It is a paid font, from $17 for a desktop licence on Creative Market.

Can I use the TAN Songbird font for products I sell?

Creative Market’s Desktop licence covers commercial projects. Check the licence terms for logos and print-on-demand before you start.

Do the heart dots work in Canva and Cricut?

Yes. In the files we rendered, the heart dots on i and j are the default letters, so they appear whenever you type, including in Canva and Cricut. The stylistic alternates are the part those apps cannot reach.

Who designed TAN Songbird?

Novia Jonatan, per the font files, published by TanType Co.

Where can I download TAN Songbird?

From the official Creative Market listing, linked above, after buying a licence.