tgm@ecl.psu.edu (06/26/91)
I'm trying to select a few good PD/Shareware Macintosh (TrueType or Type 1) fonts. The problem is there's so many of them! Does anybody know of any reviews/comparisons of such fonts? Maybe a list of the 10 best? Thanks for the help. --Tom Moertel
kibo@world.std.com (James 'Kibo' Parry) (06/26/91)
In article <1991Jun25.203228.1425@ecl.psu.edu> tgm@ecl.psu.edu writes: >I'm trying to select a few good PD/Shareware Macintosh (TrueType or Type 1) >fonts. The problem is there's so many of them! Does anybody know of any >reviews/comparisons of such fonts? Maybe a list of the 10 best? The problem is, judging fonts is just as subjective as revieing movies or shows--the only way to decide if you like a font is to see it and try it out. It's certainly possible to describe the general style of a font in words ("Stressed sans-serif with vertical emphasis, somehwat wider than Radiant, with tight kerning") but until you see it you just won't know if you'll like it or not. Popularity isn't a good gauge of much, since everyone else's tastes are different--many of Adobe's top sellers are fonts that I think no sane person would use more than once a decade (Arcadia, Hobo, etc.--really wacky-looking eyeball-hurting display fonts), but I know that at this very moment, somewhere, someone is printing a resume in Hobo. If you get a roomful of DTP users or typesetters together, I bet you that for every font you can find someone who loves it and someone who hates it. My recommendation would be to remember that if you print lots of text, chances are you'll be getting the most use out of ordinary serif books faces (ones like Baskerville, Garamond, Times, Goudy Old Style, etc.)-- you can find lots of eyecatching, weird display fonts, but text fonts are very important to track down (and harder to design, which explains their rarity as PD fonts.) I suggest checking the archives' descriptions for "book" or "text" typefaces. -- James Parry -- ............................................................................. James "Kibo" Parry kibo@world.std.com Independent graphic designer 271 Dartmouth St. #3D, Boston, MA 02116 specializing in logo and (617) 262-3922 typeface design.
tgm@ecl.psu.edu (06/28/91)
In article <1991Jun26.024622.26786@world.std.com>, kibo@world.std.com (James 'Kibo' Parry) writes: > In article <1991Jun25.203228.1425@ecl.psu.edu> tgm@ecl.psu.edu writes: >>I'm trying to select a few good PD/Shareware Macintosh (TrueType or Type 1) >>fonts. The problem is there's so many of them! Does anybody know of any >>reviews/comparisons of such fonts? Maybe a list of the 10 best? > > The problem is, judging fonts is just as subjective as revieing movies > or shows--the only way to decide if you like a font is to see it and try > it out. You have a point, but I still think some sort of PD/Shareware font guide would be great. I hate ftping, un-hqx-ing, uploading, un-sit-ing a font just to find out it's: 1. poorly made (e.g., has little "holes" in it), 2. missing characters (e.g., lowercase, en- & em-dash, true quotation marks, ...) 3. lacking kerning information Perhaps a font guide that dealt these types of things would save lots of wasted bandwidth and CPU time. How about: Font Format Glitches? Character set # Pairs ======================================================================= Example Font TrueType None Full 200 Lame Font Type 1 spots in `e' Just caps 0 Maybe fields for style (display, serif (old style, transitional...), sans...), and comments could be added. That would be great. But in the absence of such a guide, I'll be happy to look at anybody's Top 10 list. --Tom