[comp.fonts] Top ten fonts?

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