I think all designers have done this at some point or another, and it definitely works. I'm guilty, too. But it's bad practice. Thanks for your disclaimer.

To add: There are so many talented type designers that deserve payment for their work. I understand the allure, and the ease, but as a community, we should never advocate this practice and should do our best to squelch its use. It delegitimizes the work of these designers, even if our intentions are good, to buy it later, and only use it in a mockup.

There are too many whose actions may quickly become habits that slide beyond the measure of good intent. We don't want our clients playing fast and loose with our intellectual property and creative output; we shouldn't be doing the same with our fellow designers, either.

Adding to this, you would be amazed how many commercial fonts you can find on Github using a similar approach.

Of course I don't advocate stealing fonts for commercial work – but it does admittedly work, when doing mockups and you want to quickly see if a font fits before going through the hassle of purchasing/etc.

Geez, never imagined so many people put up fonts on public directories!

Wow that's smart. I'm not sure "parent directory" is suitable for both apache and nginx servers

Whoa, I'd love a quick breakdown of the google search techniques used here.

been using that for several years now as well...someone posted it on QBN/Newstoday's 'Useful thread' years ago.... and maaaaan, is it ever useful.... I was doing some mockups for a big telco a few years back...needed their custom font, but realized it would probably take a few days to get it through our contacts there....used that link and had it in seconds....works like a charm....

• that said, I agree with you 100%....i only use it for mockups etc...as soon as a project goes into production, we purchase all materials like fonts etc.... If i want someone to pay me for MY time and effort, it only makes sense to do the same for others....