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# The Shazam for Typefaces Will Tell You If That's Helvetica or Futura
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/shazam-for-typefaces-whatthefont/
- Published: 2017-11-20T16:00:01.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T16:26:07.000Z
- Description: The mobile app WhatTheFont, recently revamped with machine learning, claims to correctly identify typefaces encountered IRL 90% of the time.
- Author: Claire Voon
- Tags: Art, Monotype, typeface, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-hidden, #Import 2025-11-24 07:30(2016, 2017, part 3)

Here’s an app that graphic designers and type enthusiasts will appreciate: WhatTheFont, a mobile typeface recognition tool that will identify any font you spot in the wild and photograph with your smartphone. Call it a Shazam for typefaces — and you could argue that its name should really be “WhattheTypeface,” although that doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as easily. Available for free on [iOS](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/whatthefont/id304304134?mt=8&ref=hyperallergic.com) and [Android](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.monotype.whatthefont&ref=hyperallergic.com), the app has existed for about eight years now, but recently received a complete revamp by its creators at [Monotype](http://www.monotype.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com). It now relies on machine learning, meaning that its accuracy will improve as more people use it.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2017/11/img_8894.png)

WhattheFont in action (screenshot by the author for Hyperallergic)

The process is simple and fast. Once you spot a sexy typeface and take a photo of it with the app’s built-in camera, WhatTheFont will isolate all the included text. You then select the one of interest, and the app will present you with a list of typefaces (and fonts) that it thinks could be a match.

As Katharine Schwab [explained](https://www.fastcodesign.com/90149756/this-app-uses-machine-learning-to-identify-esoteric-fonts?ref=hyperallergic.com) at Fast Co. Design, the app can spot over 100,000 fonts, using a deep learning algorithm trained on 33 million images. WhatTheFont is accurate over 90% of the time, developer Sampo Kaasila said, and most errors stem from a poor quality photograph, or when the captured text has only a handful of characters. Its knowledge, however, is limited to Monotype’s digital fonts database, [MyFonts](https://www.myfonts.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com).

The app did a pretty good job when I took it for a test run. It correctly identified [Barbara Kruger’s signature font](https://hyperallergic.com/barbara-kruger-nyc-metrocards/) as Futura Bold Oblique, for instance, although it gave Graphicus Bold Oblique and Recta ExtraBold Italic as alternatives. Most of the time, the right typeface appeared as a top choice. However, the app seems to only work with Latin typography, as it failed to even recognize the characters on the spine of a Japanese photography book.

Overall, it is a handy tool if you’re curious about a font you chance upon, and if you want to use the identified font, the app gives you the option of purchasing it immediately.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2017/11/whatthefont.jpg)

WhattheFont in action (screenshots by the author for Hyperallergic)