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  1. #1
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    Default List your favorite fonts and why!

    This is sort a “desert island” list: if pressed for time and/or space in your hypothetical font bag you are stranded with, what typefaces would you pack? I’ll go first with some preferences for body text, not headline fonts.
    I’d love to hear comments, moreover I’d like to hear of your own Essential Typeface List, with reasons why!

    •Times New Roman is so common and so overused, I don’t think I’ve used it in almost ten years. When I want a clean serif typeface that is open and easy to read from 10-14 points when printed, I use

    •Palatino—It’s very open, the counters aren’t blocked in, and the snub-serif provides a modern look. It’s overused, but fonts go in and out of fashion, and I believe Palatino is a classic.

    •Garamond—there are two schools of preference with Garamond; those who believe ITC ruined the digital version because Tony Stan increased the x-height from the original designed by Claude Garamond. If you can find Garamond 3, it’s lighter in weight and more faithful to the original. Either way, Garamond is eco-friendly when used in books—it uses less ink than sentences cast in Times.

    • Galliard-I really like this font created by Matthew Carter (of Carter and Cone, who also created Georgia). It has extended, almost exaggerated serifs, and the italic version is a piece of artwork. It’s almost equivalent in weight to Times, so it’s not an ink saver, and produces a medium “page color” when viewing a page cast in 11-12pt. at a distance.

    • Trump Medieval—It’s more dense than Palatino, it has snub serifs, but the serifs are more pronounced and extended than Palatino. It’s great for older eyes (!) and can be used for formal occasions, text in books, wedding announcements, and so on.

    •Adobe Minion—This guy has a lot of family members, and it’s a little similar to the original Garamond 3, but it’s heavier.

    •Albertus—It’s stiff, and classic, and somber. This isn’t a typeface you use all the time, but Albertus has a real specific “attitude”, and you just need to find the right occasion to use it.

    I'll try to come back soon and provide a list of tasty headline fonts.

    My Best,

    Gary

  2. #2
    Join Date
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    Default Re: List your favorite fonts and why!

    I use a lot of typefaces and I find it really hard to pick a favourite. My husband and I do a lot of ad layouts and I will often try to match a font to the client or to the product being advertised. I have to say I like Garamond and I have a whole family of Switzerland which is quite similar to Helvetica.

    I also quite like script fonts, my favourite free script font is Scriptina Pro which I found on Font Squirrel.com
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
    My current Xara software: Designer Pro 365 12.6

    Good Morning Sunshine.ca | Good Morning Sunshine Online(a weekly humorous publication created with XDP and exported as a web document) | Angelize Online resource shop | My Video Tutorials | My DropBox |
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  3. #3
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    Default Re: List your favorite fonts and why!

    Scriptana is quite nice, I'd agree.

    I'm not sure, but I think "Switzerland" is identical to Helvetica.

    See, you can copyright a font name, but not the design itself (or at least, it's hard to prove).

    The FontShop vends some nice typefaces, but some of them are reworks of existing typefaces whose names are trademarked and such. "Addled", for example, is "Ad Lib", whose name is copyright Bitstream and a few others.

    I actually telephoned SWFTE when they were in business and asked them for the "real names" of fonts they distributed.

    I tell you what, "name that font" might make an interesting thread here, or just coming up with the commonly-known names for "mystery fonts" (ie. "Bengal" is actually "Benguiat", and "Surf Style" is actually "Van Dijk".

    -g-
    Last edited by Barbara B; 16 March 2012 at 03:59 AM.

  4. #4
    Join Date
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    Default Re: List your favorite fonts and why!

    We have a new sub-fourm: Name That Font that would be perfect to make note of fonts that go by different names. I've copied Gary's post #3 to that forum.
    What other fonts do you know about that go by different names? Post the font names and examples of the fonts, BUT NOT THE FONTS THEMSELVES them in the Name That Font sub-forum.
    Barbara Bouton
    TalkGraphics Forum Administrator

    The Xara Xone website developer. | TheBoutons.com

  5. #5

    Default Re: List your favorite fonts and why!

    Hmm. The new fonts section has gotten me thinking about typefaces all day, with this topic rattling around the skull the most.

    It would be difficult for me to pick a few, especially different ones than Gary's and Frances' pick of Scriptina—I would like to make some invites with it one day.

    Among my favorites is the Goudy Old Style family as for serif'd type. For non-serif type heads, I have paired it with Goudy Sans and like the sans version's playfulness.

    If I could call all 61 weights and styles of Helvetica and Helv. Neue that I have a single font, well, I would include it in "the bag." I don't get tired of using the variations.

    I have used the Warnock Pro family off and on over the last decade for various things. I like the unfinished trailing descenders on both the cap and lowercase "J" and what looks like a hesitation of the descender of the lowercase "y" when using a nib and ink.

    Hmm. Lots more I am sure.

    Mike

  6. #6
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    Default Re: List your favorite fonts and why!

    Fredric Goudy was also known for creating Copperplate, and a font he specified could only be used by the University of California in 1934, called California, which was later recast as ITC Berkley, also a nice serif Roman font.

    A couple of things that Make Goudy Text Oldstyle distinctive is:

    • the lower-than-expected x-height for the lowercase fonts. Look at the blue dotted line and see where the lowercase letters come up to in Times Roman.

    • The angle at which the thin parts occur in the Roman ("thick and thin" strokes) characters. It's called a diagonal stress, as opposed to Didot and other modern fonts that use a vertical stress (Bodoni is a good example). Oldstyles can also be distinguished by the staggering of the number characters. They have alternating baselines which often make a long typed number quick to read.

    Goudy Sans actually does have a very slight serif. Here's example's of Helvetica compared to Futura and Goudy Sans. Fonts go in and out of style and I think Futura is coming back; I'll tend to use Futura for serious assignments and a little "lighter" face is Gill Sans.

    Click image for larger version. 

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  7. #7

    Default Re: List your favorite fonts and why!

    Yep, Futura is a keeper. Its slight variations of shape (compare the uppercase Bs in your example) appeal to me.

    Mike

  8. #8
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    Default Re: List your favorite fonts and why!

    Myriad for print and trebuchet for web
    Flawless Form. Faultless Function. Crafted by Cloud

    https://www.cloudwebagency.co.uk

  9. #9
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    Default Re: List your favorite fonts and why!

    ...and 'why'?



    I also really like and use the Myriad family wherever possible in print.

    Alternatives I could live with include Dax and Frutiger, same sort of stark but human feel.

    Click image for larger version. 

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  10. #10

    Default Re: List your favorite fonts and why!

    My favorite italicized text is ... Engravers' Old Style 205. Why? I love the details, especially of the lower case letter forms. It appears to me to be both a formal style appropriate for books to announcements, yet not as much as perhaps a formal script font.

    Click image for larger version. 

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    Take care, Mike

 

 

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