What is your Go-To Font? – Random Question #5

Posted 26 Jul 2010 - 7 Gratefully received comments

Here’s another opportunity for you to have your say, with another one of my random questions.

I’ve been thinking about fonts a little more than usual recently. This is down to an article that appeared on the BBC News Website titled ‘Do Typefaces Really Matter?’
This was an interesting read that might make some people a bit more aware of the importance of typography in design. However I thought it tailed off badly at the end giving Bruno Maag another opportunity for a bit of Helvetica bashing. You can read more on his views in this article from the Creative Review Blog called ‘The Helvetica Killer’. Mr Maag has an excellent reasons to grind this particular axe, but I don’t think he’ll ever sharpen it enough to chop down the massive oak that is ‘Helvetica’.

Typography is severely underestimated in ‘general’ design. It’s something that needs to be understood and utilised properly for full impact. Having said this, I’m of the opinion that there are too many fonts available that perform the same job.

Variety is a wonderful thing, but when it comes to choosing between two fonts whose differences are nuanced every so slightly, it seems ridiculous. As mentioned in the BBC article, some people find it difficult to choose a font now because there is so much choice.

But I’m going to ask you to choose anyway!

What is your Go-To Font?

I know it’s all dependent on the brief, and what role/message/feel the font has fill, but we all have a small cache of fonts that are in easy reach. The fonts you always experiment with first.

Mine change on a week to week basis, but right now I’m rediscovering the joys of Clarendon.
I find it strong and classical with an ability to be contemporary.

Let me know what you think of the BBC article, the opinions of Mr Maag and of course your font of the moment.

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7 Comments

  • Duncan Y. says:
    July 26, 2010 at 11:55 am

    Thanks for your sharing mate! Just a lil 2 cents of mine here again i guess. :P

    After following Graham Smith’s wonderful sharing for several months and some readings upon some articles sharing by various designers, i then realize that choosing a font is really important. Then i start realizing that i know nothing about Typography! :D That’s really a disaster after all but i still keep on experimenting upon using various types of typefaces on different projects (though mostly i downloads free fonts but now i try to nail down how complete the font is and even after downloads, i try to check if that font are any similar to any pay fonts which is within my knowledge).

    I personally like Clarendon a lot as well but i can hardly combine it with those projects i have in hand. (sigh) I think i’ll just keep it for poster or any other headline use before i can maximize the usage of it :D

    Well if i really have to point out what kind of font i like, i think it would be serif fonts would be my all time favorites and Century would be on the list. (omg! i gotta go! the negative space in the Clarendon are calling!)

    One last thing, Cambria is beautiful too!

    [Reply]

    Ken Reynolds Reply:
    July 29th, 2010 at 8:04 am

    Like a lot of design, the devil is in the detail.
    It can be frustrating being a designer because most of the time, if you do your job well nobody notices, if you do it badly everyone criticizes.

    Fonts are an important part of the puzzle.

    [Reply]

  • renee says:
    July 27, 2010 at 12:58 am

    mmm..clarendon =)
    trade gothic bold condensed, raspoutine and chunk five have been my instant reactions to fonts lately, but it changes constantly.

    [Reply]

  • Dereck Johnson says:
    July 28, 2010 at 8:39 am

    As you say, “it changes weekly” but I’ve been holding on to Avenir lately. It’s a strong, clean san serif, with a nice collection of weights. It works great for headlines and with its open x-height is also suitable for body copy.

    [Reply]

  • Owen Jones says:
    July 29, 2010 at 7:57 am

    Gotta say, Helvetica is quite often the default for me still! Sorry Bruno… The other font dangerously close to mass overuse is Museo from Exljbris. How that font is free I don’t know, it’s awesome but could prove its own downfall!

    I love Gotham but haven’t managed to save up enough to purchase it yet. Some of the other Hoefler & Frere-Jones fonts are awesome too but it’s a cash thing for me at the minute! Check out Sentinel – a Clarendon-esque font with much more depth and flexibility (italics, more weights etc.). Also Archer and Tungsten are constantly tempting me in.

    [Reply]

    Ken Reynolds Reply:
    July 29th, 2010 at 8:06 am

    I still like Helvetica too. (Sorry Mr Maag!) I find Univers too cold and clinical to out-do Helvetica.

    I’ll be sure to check out Sentinel, cheers!

    [Reply]

    Owen Jones Reply:
    July 29th, 2010 at 9:20 am

    Cool, make sure it’s the H&FJ Sentinel, there seem to be others out there! http://typography.com/fonts/font_styles.php?productLineID=100034

    [Reply]

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Who's Ken?

Picture of Ken I'm a freelance graphic designer living and working in Suffolk. I've been using Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign & Quark Xpress since 1999 but I've been using pens, pencils, paper and most importantly my imagination for a lot longer. I'm always looking for new clients to work with and interesting projects to work on.

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