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Daniel Will-Harris'
Favorite Body Text Faces
American
Typewriter - [like a typewriter,
but proportionally spaced-cute and I'm a sucker
for cute. {Lou Grant}]
Bembo, Aldine
401 - [one of the most subtle, beautiful,
elegant body text faces. If you're just starting
out with type you probably won't see why it's so
special-then you'll hit a plateau and
"get" it. Print at >600 dpi]
Berkeley Old
Style - [modern, friendly, slightly unusual.
Doesn't come across as radical...]
Bernhard Gothic - [An overlooked, but
wonderful sans serif face that belongs
among the classics. Here's a great example of
some of the best stuff in the field being
overshadowed by crap-a.k.a. Helvetica-because of
corporate politics.]
Bodoni - [Not Bo-dee-nee; is a
wonderful face that always looks elegant. People
complain it's hard to use, but then, some people
are whiners. Print at >600 dpi {Proscuitto}]
Caecilia-PNM - [A great slab serif
face with real italics. Great for faxing. It's
got vigor and intensity and strength. I'm in love
with a typeface. Is this sick or just a bit
twisted?]
Cantoria MT
- [Unusual body text face that has a lot of
character without being distracting. Has a real
period feeling-is it a coincidence that it's the
typeface used on the underside of my sofa
cushions?]
Celestia - [This gorgeous
"distressed" - [rough edged] face gives
you a letterpressed feeling. It's the kind of
typeface that lets you appear traditional to
those who want you to look traditional, while
you're secretly being chic. Set it at large sizes
and it's no secret. {Someone left the Bembo in
the rain...}]
Centaur-MT,
Venetian-301 - [Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful,
classic face-just don't set it too small. I think
I like elegant faces like this because of my
secret desire to be Cary Grant. This is the
typeface he'd have on his match books. Well,
maybe he'd have Huxley Vertical, but anything
longer than a few initials and this is what he'd
use. I may never be Cary Grant (never say
never?), but I can still look like him in print.
{3/4 man with just a touch of beast}]
Cheltenham -
[Don't overlook this charming, easy-to-read,
friendly but authoritative face-I like the
original version, available from Bitstream, for
its old fashioned feel, but the ITC version is
also great. The New York Times uses this for
headlines (then inexplicably uses Imperial for body
text), so the face still carries authority even
though it's actually quite cute and, as I said,
I'm a sucker for cute.]
Electra -
[The classic modern body text face-very
cool, machine-age, and easy to read. Maybe it's
that I grew up reading novels set in Electra, but
it looks intellectual to me.]
Futura -
[Even though it's 50 years older than Helvetica
it looks more modern-clean, simple. I love
the name, too (even if Ford almost ruined it by
putting it on a stinker of a car-of course, they
destroyed the name Edsel, too, and that was
Henry's own son. Now they're selling a thing
called a "Probe," which sounds
ominously medical to me). {F U T U R A. It's like
something you'd find on an ashtray from the 1939
World's Fair. Neat, huh?}]
Galliard ITC
- [A beautiful face with justifiably famous
italics. {The name alone always reminds me of a
galleon, so maybe that's why I find this face so
swashbuckling.}]
Garamond -
[There are more versions of Garamonds than you
can shake a stick at (and why you'd want to shake
a stick is beyond me). But Garamond is an
elegant, invisible face--especially Garamond 3
and Adobe Garamond. {For those who want to
believe we're not in the 20th century}]
Gill Sans, Humanist-521 [If you've been to
London, and you like the Underground, then you
have a sentimental attachment to this face
(which, I know, isn't the same face but is based
on the Underground face). It's friendly. It's an
upbeat sans serif that can also look elegant. If
I could only have one sans serif face this would
be it (though the boldest weights are just plain
silly).]
Goudy
Old Style - [This pretty typeface
is at once elegant and friendly, beautiful and
official, simple yet baroque. There's just
something pleasant about this face. A note
about Goudy--he may have said that any man who'd
letterspace lowercase would steal sheep--but that
was then and this is now. If you're going to
justify text (and I find it mostly unnecessary),
then you should use letterspacing, also
called Microjustification. This puts tiny, almost
invisible spaces between the letters, which is
obviously preferable to the big, gappy white
spaces between words that
"traditionalists" seem to prefer. {It's
a good thing his last name wasn't
"Schmucky"}]
Highlander-ITC -
[If a typeface can be cuddly, this is it.
Here's more cute, and you know, I'm a sucker for
cute. Oz Cooper was a great designer of the 20's,
and he's inspired many great faces (including
several bearing his name such as Cooper, Ozwald,
and Oz Handicraft). Though this doesn't bear his
name (the story is that ITC had no typefaces that
started with an "H" so they asked that
this one be--I would have just called it Oz).
David Farey did a great job keeping Cooper's
quirkiness, yet creating something quirky you can
actually use for body text. It's soft and round
and fun, but not silly--good at virtually any
size. It's kind of a cross between really neat
handwriting and typesetting, and it's one of my
favorite new faces. {Claes Oldenberg meets Gill
Sans}]
Joanna -
[Surprising slab serif face with unusual italics.
Simple, yet distinctive.]
Kabel,
ITC-Kabel, Cable, Geometric-231 - [Kabel says
"deco" in a crisp, unaffected way. The
ITC version has a large x-height, the original
version looks more authentic.{Tinsel, Glamour,
Excitement}]
Korinna-ITC
- [I love art nouveau-and here's an art nouveau
face that doesn't overwhelm, looks great at 300
dpi, and is original from start to finish.
Benguiat is like Korinna taken a bit further (or
a bit too far) and while beautiful, it can be
overwhelming and is often misused. But Korinna is
under-used and is a remarkable face you shouldn't
overlook. {Potato Latkes, or the Station House
Cafe}]
Legacy-Serif-ITC
- [Elegant new body text face reminiscent of
Jensen but with a modern touch, works
indescribably well with it's sibling, Legacy
Sans. ]
Legacy-Sans-ITC
- [Elegant sans serif face that stands well on
its own, or works brilliantly with Legacy Serif.]
Melior,
Zapf-Elliptical- [Melior is strong, yet
silent. It works well at low-res which means it
works great on-screen-if you have it, try it for
the normal face in your Web reader.]
Myriad - [A
very streamlined humanist sans serif. Because
it's a Multiple Master, you can get just
exactly the weight and width you want, from
very light condensed to very black extended. It's
great. {Aluminum. Cool. A little dead. But a
useful corpse. No, not human, not animal but
mineral.}]
NicolasCochin
- [Quirky, antique, only good for short blocks of
text, but distinctive and charming.]
Perpetua,
Lapidary 333 - [It's delicate, yet strong.
Old-fashioned, yet modern. A useful paradox with
great italics.]
Stemple
Schneidler - [Sometimes overbearing in its
quirkiness, but delightful.]
Serifa - [A
modern slab-serif face that's practical-at times
even cute, but always readable, even when faxed.
{A little bit like machine pieces--fascinatingly
mechanical}]
Syntax - [A
great sans serif face that's modern, classy,
distinctive not distracting. Elegant, too.]
Tempus - ITC Tempus is
a unique and wonderful typeface. Casual, yet with
a hint of relaxed formality. It's artistic
without being pretentious. Available in both
serif and sans serif versions, this face can be
used for about a page of next, but not much more,
because it's so interesting it could be
distracting in a long run.
Triplex-serif
- [Zuzano Licko's typeface from Emigre was said
to be radical just a few years ago. Now it just
looks modern and playful and fun-and it's has a
nice sans serif partner that matches perfectly.
The condensed versions are also beautiful, and
useful.]
Weiss - [Elegant but not
stuffy. Unusual in a subtle way. Understandably
luxurious-like old money.]
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