20+ Best Pixel Perfect Fonts for 8-bit Designs for 2023

Pixel fonts are going through a kind of renaissance. Despite today’s high-resolution technology, artists and designers continue to use old-school pixelated fonts that were popular in the early days of computing in order to evoke a certain type of retro nostalgia. 

These kinds of typefaces bring to mind old-school home computers, low-res displays, and classic video games like Space Invaders and Pac-Man. They’re perfect for retro artwork, game banners/posters, and other playful design projects

To help you find that perfect pixelated typeface you’re looking for, we’ve scoured the web and compiled a list of the 29 best pixel fonts available. 

We made sure to include a wide range of different font styles, so you’re sure to find something you like in this list. Now, let’s get started!

What are Pixel Fonts?

First, let’s clarify exactly what we mean by pixel font. A pixel font is any font that looks aliased. Aliasing occurs when curved lines are displayed as zigzagging horizontal/vertical (think stair steps).

Contrary to popular belief, pixel fonts aren’t exactly the same as bitmap fonts. Bitmap fonts are fonts in which each glyph is made up of a series of pixels (dots). When bitmap fonts are enlarged, they appear to have jagged edges due to aliasing.

This makes bitmap fonts a sub-category of pixel fonts (and we’ve included plenty of them in this list), but they’re not the only type. Outline fonts can be classed as pixel fonts too as long as they’re designed to look aliased. We’ve included both outline and bitmap fonts in this list.

29 Best Pixel Fonts to Level Up Your Designs 

Ready to choose the perfect font for your retro designs? Here are the 29 best pixel fonts available, starting with our top pick.

And remember: if you see anything you like, just click the font name to go to the download page.

01. TickerBit – Our Top Pick

TickerBit, by ThatThat, is the most popular pixel font on Envato Elements. It’s a modern bitmap font with a simple, classic design and comes in four styles: Regular, Italic, Monospaced, and Monospaced Italic. It comes with a ton of glyphs (over 220) including lowercase and uppercase letters, numbers, punctuation, accented characters, etc.

Why it’s our top pick:

The reason TickerBit is our number one pick comes down to its simplicity. It doesn’t try to invent the wheel, with a classic 8-bit design that’d look great in all kinds of retro designs. It’s highly readable and ideal for headlines and body text. 

Price: Personal and commercial use included in Envato Elements subscription ($16.50/month)

02. Video Game Font

Next up, we have a typeface that should be familiar to anyone that’s ever played Space Invaders. The aptly-named Video Game Font by SaltAndPepperDesigns is another classic 8-bit font that’ll take you back to the 80s with its retro, Atari-inspired design. 

In addition to the standard A-Z letters and numbers, it also comes with 17 pixelated martian dingbats that you can use to spice up your designs. To use the dingbats, simply type characters A to Q in uppercase (lowercase will show the regular letters).

Price: Personal and commercial use included in Envato Elements subscription ($16.50/month)

03. Pixel 2

Pixel 2 is a Color/SVG OpenType font inspired by pixel art. Color fonts like this utilize new technology that allows them to incorporate more details like gradients, textures, transparency, etc.

As you can see, this has enabled the designer of Pixel 2 to create a hyper-realistic 3D effect. Each character looks as if it’s made out of 3-dimensional blocks, rather than 2D dots, which makes it extra interesting and eye-catching.

Just bear in mind that SVG fonts may not show up in all text editors. They currently work in modern versions of design tools like Photoshop 2017+ and Illustrator 2018+.

Price: Personal and commercial use included in Envato Elements subscription ($16.50/month)

04. Pixel Rand 

Pixel Rand by Muse-Master is another classic pixel font with a fresher, more modern aesthetic. It’s built from medium-sized pixels and random positioning. It’s ideal for playful, retro designs like old-school video game titles and banners, cartoons, and more.

Price: Personal and commercial use included in Envato Elements subscription ($16.50/month)

05. Game Over 

Here’s another fantastic pixel-style font that’d work great on game-related designs — Game Over, by TanahAirStudio. It features a more modern design than some of the other fonts we’ve looked at so far and isn’t a true bitmap font. It’s actually an outline font so it can be scaled without causing pixelation, but it’s designed to still look slightly aliased. 

The pixel effect is subtle and the characters aren’t very uniform. Each glyph has quirky details that give it a fun, playful look. Overall, it’s a unique font that’d look great in mobile games.

Price: Personal and commercial use included in Envato Elements subscription ($16.50/month)

06. Pixel Bit

Pixel Bit is a futuristic display typeface by Ahnaf Studio. What makes this typeface so interesting is the unique ‘decaying’ effect that makes it look like the characters are breaking apart into pixels. This is achieved by using the included ‘Digital Dot Pixel’ alternates. There are 5 alternates to choose from depending on which side of the character you want the effect to appear on.

Price: Personal and commercial use included in Envato Elements subscription ($16.50/month)

07. Pixels Gone Bad

Pixels Gone Bad is a decorative, pixel-style font by Andreasleonidou. It features a modern, innovative design, in which each character looks as if it’s built out of dozens of tiny blocks that have been haphazardly arranged together. 

Unlike traditional bitmap fonts, in which pixels are arranged neatly side-by-side in an orderly fashion, the pixels in Pixels Gone Bad are messy and chaotic —- hence the name. It’s a dynamic font that pushes the boundaries and breaks expectations, which makes it a great choice for cutting-edge designs in which you want to do something different and make a statement.

Price: Personal and commercial use included in Envato Elements subscription ($16.50/month)

08. Billy

Billy’s another awesome pixelated font by designer Reghardt. The minimalist style and calm, friendly letterforms would be perfect for in-game text. It comes in three different weights.

Price: Personal and commercial use included in Envato Elements subscription ($16.50/month)

09. Thug Life

Thug Life is another innovative and distinctive display font inspired by pixel art. Each glyph is designed to look as if it’s built from pixels, but what makes this font unique is that a few pixels are seemingly missing from each glyph at random. This adds visual interest and can help bring your creative designs to life. 

Price: Personal and commercial use included in Envato Elements subscription ($16.50/month)

10. Tiny Timmy

TinyTimmy is another minimalist, retro-inspired pixel font by Reghardt. It features a similar design to the Billy font that we mentioned earlier, with simple letterforms that evoke a sense of calm and tranquility. It’d work great in relaxing games similar to Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing.

Price: Personal and commercial use included in Envato Elements subscription ($16.50/month)

11. Bitbybit

Bitbybit is a pixel typeface by DannyAldana. The designer took inspiration from retro gaming culture, particularly retro JRPGs, side-scrolling/Metroidvania games, and old-school 8-bit to 32-bit consoles. It has a simple, understated design and comes in two weights: regular and bold. 

Price: Personal and commercial use included in Envato Elements subscription ($16.50/month)

12. Kleyn

Kleyn is a classic bitmap font from Reghardt. It’s full of character and comes in two versions: regular and bold. Again, this would work well as part of the UI in simple RPGs.

Price: Personal and commercial use included in Envato Elements subscription ($16.50/month)

13. MonoPixel Awesome

MonoPixel Awesome is a vibrant, multi-colored, monospaced display font by designer MissChatZ. What makes this special is the colorful design — each pixel in every glyph is a different color. This makes it very eye-catching but can also be a bit too much if used in excess, so it’s best used in moderation.

Price: Personal and commercial use included in Envato Elements subscription ($16.50/month)

14. Waves CPC

Waves CPC by designer CPCType is one of the most ambitious fonts on this list. It isn’t easy to create a highly-elaborate gothic script out of a limited number of pixels, but they’ve done a great job of executing it. 

It’s basically a cross between a blackletter typeface and a pixel font. The pack includes three versions: the base layer, shadow layer, and inline layer. You can layer these different styles on top of each other to create complex, decorative designs. The name Wave CPC was inspired by 8bit music and waveforms.

Price: Personal and commercial use included in Envato Elements subscription ($16.50/month)

15. Ugly Byte

UglyByte, by TypeFactoryCo, is a versatile pixel font that’d work well in many different types of design but particularly mobile apps and games. Despite the name, it’s anything but ugly with neat yet characterful letterforms that look as if they’re built out of pixel blocks.

Price: Personal and commercial use included in Envato Elements subscription ($16.50/month)

16. Pixel Craft

Pixel Craft is a quirky display font by Granz Creative. It doesn’t look as aliased as other fonts on this list and isn’t a true bitmap font, but it’s still heavily inspired by pixel art and classic games. The modern, playful design would work well on all kinds of printed and digital projects. 

Price: Personal and commercial use included in Envato Elements subscription ($16.50/month)

17. Custle Guard

Custle Guard is a retro bitmap font by Rometheme. It’s great for 8-bit game covers, pixel art, and other professional design projects where you’re trying to evoke a certain sense of nostalgia. The chunky letterforms are playful and fun but not very readable.

Price: Personal and commercial use included in Envato Elements subscription ($16.50/month)

18. Sabo

Sabo is a fun pixel font family that includes both regular and filled characters. It’s a great choice if you want a versatile pixel font that you can use throughout a variety of projects.

Price: Free (royalty-free license)

19. Mistry Box

Mistry Box is a super bold and blocky pixel font. Its extra-wide letters create a retro feel. This font is extremely cool and stylish, but also a little difficult to read, so it would be best used as a logo font, or in artistic designs, rather than on posters or other informational flyers.

Price: Personal and commercial use included in Envato Elements subscription ($16.50/month)

20. Broken Console

Broken Console is a bold and modern pixel font. Although it incorporates many elements of classic pixel font, it has a more high definition feel. This would be a great logo font, and would also look great printed on physical products.

Price: Personal and commercial use included in Envato Elements subscription ($16.50/month)

21. Stigma Halloween

Stigma is a distinctive pixel font that incorporates elements of Halloween designs. The classic pixel letters feature witches’ hats and other motifs such as bats and skulls. It’s perfect for adding some spooky flair to your pixel font designs.

Price: Personal and commercial use included in Envato Elements subscription ($16.50/month)

22. Higher Wevil

Higher Wevil is a unique pixel font with an interesting Halloween theme. This font would be a great choice for a horror-themed game, as well as for event posters for Halloween gaming events.

Price: Personal and commercial use included in Envato Elements subscription ($16.50/month)

23. Jamer Game Font

Jamer is a fun and quirky pixel font that is sure to add some visual interest to your designs. The letters are chunky and angled which creates a unique 3D effect. This would be a great font for posters or digital art.

Price: Personal and commercial use included in Envato Elements subscription ($16.50/month)