Fonts not to use?

[Bobby H]

As someone who defaults to arial black a lot for my designs, due to legibility (and not knowing any better) can someone suggest some books that might be good to learn more about picking the right fonts without having to spend hours searching through them and trying each one out?

I don't know of any books that will tell you specifically what typefaces to use instead of Arial, but I can offer a few suggestions right here:

Helvetica (or Helvetica Neue)
Akzidenz Grotesk
Univers
ITC Franklin Gothic
News Gothic
Folio
Trade Gothic

Those type families can do the same visual job as Arial, but look significantly better. IMHO, Arial is a hodge-podge of stuff lifted out of Helvetica, Univers and Akzidenz Grotesk. At times these type families or good quality imitations of them have been bundled in with various applications over the years.

I got a bunch of Akzidenz Grotesk faces and other Berthold fonts bundled in with Adobe Illustrator 4.0. That version of Illustrator sucked, but the fonts were worth more than the application itself.

Be on the lookout for other great finds. Back in the 1990s I picked up an issue of Computer Arts magazine. The bundled CD had a full, legal (yet older) version of Deneba Canvas complete with 2000 URW fonts -many of which were very good imitations of commercial faces.

Anyone who has CorelDRAW will have 1000 very good quality typefaces, mostly from Bitstream. Some are from ITC and URW. For the life of me I can't figure out why so many Mac folks turned up their noses when Corel tried selling to that platform. I would have bought a copy just for the fonts!

Adobe Illustrator and Macromedia Freehand have typically been very stingy about bundling in goodies like fonts. I have the latest version of Adobe Master Collection. Its font bundle sucks. Not many fonts and hardly anything new. And a bunch are in TrueType formt, Not "pro" level OpenType. Adobe Text, a pro-level OTF face is available as a bonus download.

Ultimately, you're going to have to buy some fonts from time to time. It's not any different from buying royalty free stock photography or clip art. Just another added cost to bundle into a job. Some typefaces do get expensive. HTF Gotham costs $368 at Typography.com -actually it's on sale for $299. I paid nearly $800 for the complete Clearview Highway type family. Ouch.

 

[SignManiac]

^^^^^ Good posts, the man knows his stuff!

 

[HulkSmash]

CO, I agree and disagree..attached is a clip of a menu I laid out a while back, that to this day...I still like even with the stigma that surrounds Papyrus.

Now a font like Jokerman...I just can't see a professional use for...

I get your drift. But I still don't like the use of the font there. It's just my personal opinion. I'm sure other disagree. I've just seen the font abused so much it's hard to like in anything. Same with comic sans. '

nice design though!

 

[omgsideburns]

i don't use font, only hand letter. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

 

[Marlene]

I think that a lot of fonts are disliked by designers because they become overused and common

good point. Cooperplate looks really nice when used for a business that suits it like an old country book store but when every one and their brother starts using it for anything, it starts to look bad. what works for the "Ye Olde Book Seller" looks like crap when used for "Joe's Plumbing". knowing what fonts work for what you are designing also is as important as knowing which fonts are poo poo'd by designers. the menu with the Payrus (needed kerning on the Pasta LaFeasta!!!!) looks good as it fits the use. to use it for a daycare sign or a plumber, not good.

 

[Gino]

Many years ago, SignCraft used to have an article about what font fits the right type of business. I don't know who wrote the articles, but it was always fun to see if the author and you agreed.

It was a neat way to hone your skills.

 

[Craig Sjoquist]

Coloradosigns... You claim that that my statement of it is not the font but how it is used ..is dead wrong.
Fonts are really are just what they are ...personal choice,and popular choice, then it is a manner of HOW used.

Meaning you can use a straw broom to paint a ad, but with a good layout it will look great. or there all sorts of people in the world, treat each equal till you find otherwise, gets you across the bridge and back easier.

 

[JTBoh]

Couple things I've done over the years:

Resize the font for lowercase/uppercase letters in the same word to the same height- can help with legibility, and if you have a butt ugly letter in a singular font, can hide that bast*rd.

Small scale editing of letters - useful for making a mediocre font into something that matches the theme of the business, or adds flair. Can add "weight", flourishes, overlaps, w/e you want... does take a little time though.

But I'm just the Sales Guy.

 

[Marlene]

Couple things I've done over the years:

Resize the font for lowercase/uppercase letters in the same word to the same height- can help with legibility, and if you have a butt ugly letter in a singular font, can hide that bast*rd.

Small scale editing of letters - useful for making a mediocre font into something that matches the theme of the business, or adds flair. Can add "weight", flourishes, overlaps, w/e you want... does take a little time though.

a font can be re-worked as JonMASign said. here's an off the rack font, Alburtus that I used to make some rusted metal, routed letters for a food court. the top one is as is when you type in the word. the bottom one I kerned it tight so the letters related better to each other and changed the dots on the letter "i" to a diamond as all the edges of the letters are sharp angles and it looked odd with the default round dot. I don't usually use Alburtus but did here and it worked as I wanted to edges of the letters to look like they were cut with metal shears and the sharp edges do that.

 

[Bobby H]

Re: the previously posted menu design and its use of Papyrus.

I would like it more if it had used the Letraset Fontek version instead of the MS Office version.

The problems with the MS Office version: the capitals are over-sized and the built-in letter spacing is just horrible. Unless you get in there and manually tweak letter positions you'll end up with lots of ugly gaps between capital letters and successive lowercase letters.

Re: Copperplate Gothic, it's a nice looking "small capitals" typeface. Anyone using Adobe products over the years probably has the various "ab" and "bc" weights of Copperplate. One thing I don't like about it: it's tricky to get the letter spacing set just right. Times, Bodoni and other late 1800's "modern" faces are especially tricky with spacing. Gotta have a good eye to get them looking right.

 

[slappy]

excellent reads

http://www.signcraft.com/libraries/archive-docs/Tired-of-the-Same-Old-Type.pdf

http://www.letterheadfonts.com/tutorials/basiclayout/index.php

http://www.letterheadfonts.com/tutorials/choosingfonts/matchthefont.pdf

 

[Rodi]

As someone who defaults to arial black a lot for my designs, due to legibility (and not knowing any better) can someone suggest some books that might be good to learn more about picking the right fonts without having to spend hours searching through them and trying each one out?

By good typography books like Anatomy of a typeface. Understand why certain fonts work well so often (Antique Olive, Akzidenz Grotesk) and others fail so often (Arial, Antique book)

Go to "On snots and fonts" Lucs website.

Read about a time, not so long ago where hardware was married to certain fonts and why it is such a difficult business/history to understand. You say, what do I mean? Well, Monotype (a great type foundery until Stanley Morrison died in 1967) makes Arial (a ripoff of the x height and weight of Helvetica) and now they are both owned under the umbrella of AGFA! Why is Times Roman (originally made by Monotype) registered to Linotype, then Monotype made Times New Roman just to add to the confusion.

Fonts are mess, but just reading about their history is actually pretty fun.

 

[Rodi]

a font can be re-worked as JonMASign said. here's an off the rack font, Alburtus that I used to make some rusted metal, routed letters for a food court. the top one is as is when you type in the word. the bottom one I kerned it tight so the letters related better to each other and changed the dots on the letter "i" to a diamond as all the edges of the letters are sharp angles and it looked odd with the default round dot. I don't usually use Alburtus but did here and it worked as I wanted to edges of the letters to look like they were cut with metal shears and the sharp edges do that.

Marlene, just make the "on" looser (their is heavy opitical issues that occur when certain shapes come too close together. Also tighten the "ne" a bit.

 

[Rodi]

Re: the previously posted menu design and its use of Papyrus.

I would like it more if it had used the Letraset Fontek version instead of the MS Office version.

The problems with the MS Office version: the capitals are over-sized and the built-in letter spacing is just horrible. Unless you get in there and manually tweak letter positions you'll end up with lots of ugly gaps between capital letters and successive lowercase letters.

Re: Copperplate Gothic, it's a nice looking "small capitals" typeface. Anyone using Adobe products over the years probably has the various "ab" and "bc" weights of Copperplate. One thing I don't like about it: it's tricky to get the letter spacing set just right. Times, Bodoni and other late 1800's "modern" faces are especially tricky with spacing. Gotta have a good eye to get them looking right.

When fonts were made in Hot Metal days, kerning was far different. In my estimation, certain fonts (like Bodoni & Univers) work with slight tightening of some characters (like the numeral 1 to other numbers, Caps next to lower case vowels)

 

[Bobby H]

Yes, some typefaces (like modern ones) will work with stock kerning pairs intact if the typeface is from a quality foundry, but even then kerning pairs can do only so much good. I rarely use Times unless I have a good amount of time to space it just right. Same for Bodoni. I have multiple versions of both. None are perfect.

Speaking of books, I certainly agree EVERYONE on this forum really should read books about type. And Anatomy of a Typeface by Alexander Lawson should be on every sign artist's bookshelf.

Two other books I consider vital for studying type: The Elements of Typographical Style by Robert Bringhurst and Letters of Credit, A View of Type Design by Walter Tracy.

These books can help describe much of the ground work in planning out a new letter style. Or they can teach graphic artists the kind of respect they really should have for typefaces and the restraint they should use when wanting to throw in lots of different typeface designs into the layout or distort various types on hand to fit a constrained space.