Fonts of Utility for All Types of Trouble
I dabble in design. I am not, nor do I aspire to be a designer. However, like most of my colleagues who work with text, either printed, or onscreen, I have opinions about type and typography.
I tend to like old-style, angled-serif typefaces, with good balance between thick and thin strokes: Goudy, Jensen, in a pinch Garamond.
But when it comes to pairing typefaces, and choosing display fonts, I waffle. My own preference is for slightly ornate, whimsical type: Gallia, Parisian, Rendezvous, even Harrington. I balance my love of whimsy and floweriness against considerations of legibility.
But I recognize that I can't always have ornate display fonts. They're not always appropriate-sometimes I need to focus on legibility, sometimes the documents I create demand a bit more gravitas. So I dither.
I was dithering yesterday over what typeface to use for the headers on a handout on Editing and the Law (aka What Editors in Canada Should Know About Libel, Copyright, Trademarks, Plagiarism, and Model Releases). The body was set in Goudy. A topic of this weight demanded a more serious typeface, but I didn't want to go as far as the monumental Citation. I didn't want to go the cop-out route of using a darker, heavier family of Goudy, and Helvetica doesn't please me.
So I googled something like "Which font goes with Goudy?" and found my way to Esperfonto's handycool font-matching engine.
Did I mention it was handycool?
Tell it what typeface you need to match. Tell it how you plan to use the matching typeface-display or body text-and what kind of look you need-traditional or modern? Cool or warm? Serious or friendly? Then the engine suggests a typeface. It seems to like Gill Sans a lot. Daniel Will-Harris, the proprietor of Esperfonto, is quick to remind users that we're getting his suggestions and we should feel free to disagree.
Lots of other cool stuff at Esperfonto, too, including a list of typefaces that work well together (Marigold & Centaur: a match made in mythology, or maybe Narnia! Joanna & Gill Sans-they're a sweet couple who like to go golfing on Sundays. Albertus & Shannon-initially I thought they were going to open a used book store together, but now I see they're actually opening a patisserie.)
Fontastic! *ducks and runs*
I tend to like old-style, angled-serif typefaces, with good balance between thick and thin strokes: Goudy, Jensen, in a pinch Garamond.
But when it comes to pairing typefaces, and choosing display fonts, I waffle. My own preference is for slightly ornate, whimsical type: Gallia, Parisian, Rendezvous, even Harrington. I balance my love of whimsy and floweriness against considerations of legibility.
But I recognize that I can't always have ornate display fonts. They're not always appropriate-sometimes I need to focus on legibility, sometimes the documents I create demand a bit more gravitas. So I dither.
I was dithering yesterday over what typeface to use for the headers on a handout on Editing and the Law (aka What Editors in Canada Should Know About Libel, Copyright, Trademarks, Plagiarism, and Model Releases). The body was set in Goudy. A topic of this weight demanded a more serious typeface, but I didn't want to go as far as the monumental Citation. I didn't want to go the cop-out route of using a darker, heavier family of Goudy, and Helvetica doesn't please me.
So I googled something like "Which font goes with Goudy?" and found my way to Esperfonto's handycool font-matching engine.
Did I mention it was handycool?
Tell it what typeface you need to match. Tell it how you plan to use the matching typeface-display or body text-and what kind of look you need-traditional or modern? Cool or warm? Serious or friendly? Then the engine suggests a typeface. It seems to like Gill Sans a lot. Daniel Will-Harris, the proprietor of Esperfonto, is quick to remind users that we're getting his suggestions and we should feel free to disagree.
Lots of other cool stuff at Esperfonto, too, including a list of typefaces that work well together (Marigold & Centaur: a match made in mythology, or maybe Narnia! Joanna & Gill Sans-they're a sweet couple who like to go golfing on Sundays. Albertus & Shannon-initially I thought they were going to open a used book store together, but now I see they're actually opening a patisserie.)
Fontastic! *ducks and runs*