FONTS!

[coldforge]

Fonts, bitches! Typography! The body and form of language! The art of letters! I know you're a buncha closet typo freaks. You've got your favs, and your disfavs. So spill it. Tell us about your favorite serif font of the moment, or about the single typographic peeve which sets you off. Tell us which phrase you type out when testing a new font.


Tell me I'm not the only one.

[convensive]

i was a Times New Roman man for a long long time... but i recently switched to Palatino Linotype... it's just so much cleaner and has better proportionality...

[the eyepatch guy]

Favorite serif at the moment: Pentagraf
Favorite sans at the moment: Knockout. I use that shit for EVERYTHING.

Most hated type right now: Gotham. It's intensely beautiful, but it's so overused right now.
Most hated type of all time: probably Lithos. Why do people use it so much?

I don't like to type a phrase to test a typeface unless I'm using it for a very specific application -- otherwise I'll use greeking. I get too distracted by content.

The thing that sets me off more than any other is when people use primes instead of apostrophes. That makes me want to kick and punch.

[lucky strike]

i write graffiti and design graphic
i letters
no homo

[El_Josharino]

I'm a Verdana man.

[coldforge]

Pentagraf is pretty interesting. I'm not sure I could look at it for the length of a whole book, but I dig serifs that obviously are designed for legibility even as they are graphically distinctive.

Serifwise, I been rocking Warnock in most of the stuff I write these days. That said, Demos has been on my screen a lot. It's very solid, and feels no-nonsense and legible without being boring. Plus, Origami has been my default browser font for a long time. Another legible-but-not-boring one.

I have too many serifs.

[Maaik]

Georgia and Estangelo Edessa.  Arial or Arial Black for larger sized pronouncement type things.

I think this thread wins the dork trophy.

[coldforge]

Oh, boy, we got our first Arial. M/Pk, you win the 'taken out back and beaten with a hose' raffle. What, do I really need to YSI you a real sans-serif?

[coldforge]

YESSS I AM SO KING FUCKING DORK RIGHT ABOUT NOW

[Bernard]

Like everybody else, I too hate comic sans.

The choicest  work I've seen is being done by Hoefler & Frere-Jones. Their stuff was pointed out to me by a typographer friend so it might be a bit geeky, but I still think their work is timeless & gorgeous.

I like Whitney and Hoefler Text.

[coldforge]

Geeky nothing, Bernard. F-J and H are the absolute tops right now, if you ask me. Their shit is always distinctive and yet 100% bullshit free.

[Bernard]

I declare you my Type Homey.

[coldforge]

Holla!

[the eyepatch guy]

Pentagraf is pretty interesting. I'm not sure I could look at it for the length of a whole book, but I dig serifs that obviously are designed for legibility even as they are graphically distinctive.

Serifwise, I been rocking Warnock in most of the stuff I write these days. That said, Demos has been on my screen a lot. It's very solid, and feels no-nonsense and legible without being boring. Plus, Origami has been my default browser font for a long time. Another legible-but-not-boring one.

I have too many serifs.

There is no such thing as too many serifs.

One of my co-workers just used pentagraf in a book, and it's actually not as tiring as you might thing -- but it's not a very text heavy book. My company makes art books, not novels, so we can get away with more interesting type.

Demos is nice, but the italic is boooooring. It reminds me a bit of Comenius, which I love, and which has a rockin italic (dig the lowercase w).

I don't know Warnock -- other than as the guy who started Adobe. What does it look like?

Bernard, you are totally right about Hoefler & Frere-Jones. Whitney is awesome. I've been lobbying to buy it at work, but it's really pricy -- and also everybody keeps thinking I mean Whitman.

[SPACERACE]

It's all about Day Roman by Apostrophic.

[coldforge]

iPatch, you're absolutely right about the Demos italic. It is very dull. I'll check out Comenius. I am a big fan of interesting italics; especially, of course, real italics rather than obliques. Especially with a font like Kinesis or Quadraat where the designers forwent an angle nearly altogether in favor of a more or less completely different style. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't,AeiI first saw Quadraat in Michael Nyman's "Experimental Music" (big ups to books that mention what face they're in!) and it was actually just rather distracting.

Warnock looks like this:


and like this:

I just discovered Poynter Gothic a couple days ago; I'm in love. It's really really good. But I only have the plain face; no italics, no bold. It's painful. And you can't even buy it because it's a 'legibility series' face; designed for huge multi-printer publications.

[alexandra]

i made my own font... from my handwriting  

if any of you wanna have it:

you know the deal, right click, save target as....


i don't have the best hardwriting in the world, kthx.

[Maaik]

Oh, boy, we got our first Arial. M/Pk, you win the 'taken out back and beaten with a hose' raffle. What, do I really need to YSI you a real sans-serif?

Until now, I had yet have someone threaten to beat me up and email me a font.

The only font I've ever downloaded was the Silkscreen font used in Diesel Sweeties.  I'm open to new fonts.  It might help reinvigorate my self-publication bug.

[the eyepatch guy]

Oh, boy, we got our first Arial. M/Pk, you win the 'taken out back and beaten with a hose' raffle. What, do I really need to YSI you a real sans-serif?

Until now, I had yet have someone threaten to beat me up and email me a font.

His threats are justified:
http://www.iliveonyourvisits.com/helvetica/
http://www.ms-studio.com/articles.html
http://www.mimeartist.com/helvetica/

Mr. Coldforge, what's your email address?

Also: Michael Nyman wrote a book? Where the fuck have I been? Is it good? The soundtrack to Drowning By Numbers is my FAVORITE RECORD OF ALL TIME.

[the eyepatch guy]

OK, I'ma read that. Or more likely I'ma buy that and stick it on my shelf next to Ocean of Sound.

Do you get the idea that Miic is making fun of us over in the PAPER! thread?

[coldforge]

I am honor-bound as a gentleman and as a scholar and enthusiast, for whom no field is too esoteric or academic to be worthy of study, to take him at his word and greet his display of enthusiasm as a sincere ejaculation of aficionadism. Should his statements prove to be nothing but some childish jest, or cheap satire, well,AeiI think we all know upon whom that would reflect most poorly.

[Maaik]

Interthreadular discussion, BLA-DOW!

I worked in various printing houses/copy shops over the last few years and have passed many many reams of paper through my fingers.  I know what I like.  Wausau is a pretty good workhorse.  I'm going through a ream of their 24# "re-entry" red (featured on all my chapbooks and liner notes) and it is pleasing (though now I wish I'da sprung for a heavier stock for the books).

At CopyMax, people would come to me specifically if they needed to identify the weight of a particular sheet of paper.  My accuracy was surprising, especially with my guitar-calloused fingers.

More in line with this thread, I think you guys would be horrified at the complete lack of typeface creativity on most business cards currently circulating or going to press.  The typical selections are pretty dismal, the default usually being your hated Arial.

Business cards are typically 80# white, thermographied black ink.

And yeah, I was totally making fun of you guys, but given that doing so reveals me to be a much bigger dork than anyone here, homage>satire.

[coldforge]

Seriously, dude. Any mockery that forces you to reveal freakishly encyclopedic knowledge of the weights, textures, grains and shades of paper is gonna cost when it comes to the nerd-o-meter.

Man, if I had business cards, they'd be so fucking classy. I'd just need something good to print on them. Oh, man. The perfect business card font? I'd be agonizing for days.

Z. D. Smith
Music Critic at Large

Z. D. Smith
Total Zen Master

Z. D. Smith
Techno-Shaman

Oh, man.

[coldforge]

I've got it! COPPERPLATE GOTHIC!

No, no, I kid. I kid. You can put down the cleaver.

Ok, listen, I'm sorry. That was too far; I acknowledge that. That crossed the line.

[FreddyKnuckles]

this is a silly, silly place