what's a good font

[rgremill]

Hmm, maybe you could look at my list and suggest some fonts I might be interested in.

[smorg]

Try this, which gives you fonts supplied with certain programs. It will give you some idea of a basic "standard," i.e., many of the names repeat from program to program:

http://www.unleash.com/articles/fonts/fontlist.html

[rgremill]

smorg, I was asking for a list of 'quality fonts' from buyfonts.com without any reference to the previously mentioned 'quality fonts'. Is this making any sense?

[BobInce]

If you're choosing a font to use/change for a logotype alone, there is no reason to limit yourself to a core set of well-regarded fonts. In fact if you want a distinctive logo you might want to avoid the Old Faithfuls; the world doesn't need any more logos that are just the name of the company in Gill Sans all-caps!

There are plenty of cheaper and free fonts on the web and with software (including Xara), and even the commercial professional fonts are affordable if you only need one weight (as for a logotype). Choose a font where the single name you'll be setting looks pleasing and is appropriate to the business. Make tweaks for distinctiveness, if you like.

Decide for yourself! Not knowing the nature of your wife's business, all I can advise myself is to avoid tacky over-used fonts like Roost/Revue, BrushScript, MS Comic Sans! [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Don't feel you need David Siegel's approval - especially in matters of Web. At the time he wrote the first-edition Killer Web Sites, he was still a print designer at heart, desperate for inflexible control of everything on the page and blind to all other concerns. Ooh, used to drive me up the wall he did!

[rgremill]

Thanks for your reply Andrew. I'm not going to limit myself to using just the fonts Siegel suggests. I just wanted to either find a place that sells his suggested fonts cheaply or find some alternative fonts which look similar. To buy all of the weights of just one font would cost over $100.

Brushscript must be the most overused font on the planet.

My biggest gripe with Siegel's book was his suggestion about using entry pages and entry tunnels. Can you imagine the web if everyone would have took his suggestions? But, I'll give the guy a break, the book is ancient, it was written in 1996.

Mick, I'm still waiting for your list. I have my credit card standing by.

[smorg]

...but I don't think you're going to get it. When it comes to fonts, the "quality" comes from the foundry/designer and the better sites only offer that kind of quality. I suspect that was the principal reason Siegal listed the fonts that he did, not because the style and/or face alone are "quality." What was popular at the time he wrote his book also played a part in what fonts he listed. Every design book I have gives a different list than Siegal's for those reasons.

I've never used www.buyfonts.com, so if anyone reading this thread has, they would be in a better position to tell you whether this source is "quality." In the design world, quality can also mean fonts that are built right and don't trash your computer trying to work with them, and are licensed according to the law. By that token, Xara Ltd. would have quality fonts.

Just having visited their site, you can spend quite some time browsing their lists of TT and PS fonts to get an idea for what would work for your wife.

As for your determination to get a list, what Gary has given you as his personal preferences is what you're going to get from anybody else: a personal preference list. No one has the time to go through the thousands of fonts at www.buyfonts.com and come up with a list that will satisfy you, least of all Mick, who has already said "no list. If he wants to e-mail you to discuss this in further detail, or you want to e-mail him to pursue this, you're perfectly free to do so.

Having said all of that, I for one would be very interested in seeing what you choose for your wife, even some variations that you wanted to post for critique/comments.

I'm sorry no one seems to have been able to give you what you wanted so far.

[rgremill]

smorg,
Mick has already started the list when he said Eric was like Gill Sans.

If he knows his products (which I know he does) he should be able to make a list of "quality" fonts, starting with Eric.

For my wife's logo we are using Trebuchet and Futurist. I think I may post the logo we came up with and get some feedback. She's not happy with it, but I never claimed to be a logo designer (although I play one on Xara!).

[Klaus Nordby]

Are you planning to start releasing OpenType fonts, with ligatures, small caps and other really necessary functions for true quality type? I'm not buying fonts from you until you do that - but if you start selling good OT fonts, I'm quite willing to pay more than your present prices for TT/T1 fonts.


K

[BobInce]

<blockquote>My biggest gripe with Siegel's book was his suggestion about using entry pages and exit tunnels.</blockquote>

Indeed. That's one of the more egregious symptoms of this common form of designer-misthinking, wanting to control the user's entire experience^* from entering to leaving the site. Of course people just don't browse that way.</p><blockquote>I'll give the guy a break, the book is ancient</blockquote>

Yeah, but it wasn't so long ago that good web design was a completely unknown factor! Most frustrating, watching every new lemming take his flawed advice as gospel!</p>

Ah well, he's repented now, eh. And some of the worst excesses of HTML abuse probably helped get some momentum behind CSS, at least.</p>

In conclusion, David Siegel has funny-looking arms.</p>

* - it's still a good rule of thumb that if a designer or marketeer describes their site using the words "user experience", you're in for a bad time and should run away. Very fast.</p>

[Mick Robinson]

Sorry been busy recently...
I can't find details of Avenir, Rotis or Stone Sans. The fonts which you might find useful are English, Europe, Straight, Tuwim, and OCR-B (all from our Professional range of fonts). I can't find exact details of Copperplate but as it's described as sans serif, Formal might be a near match.
Disclaimer: I'm not suggesting that these fonts are exact matches for the original commercial fonts.
Reply to Klaus: we don't have any current plans to introduce OpenType fonts. With the present set-up of the site it's difficult to add new types of font. (Adding more fonts of existing types is less of a problem, which is how we could add 300 new fonts earlier this year.)
Mick