[comp.fonts] What's yer fav. font combos?

sdbeck@mac.cc.macalstr.edu (04/20/91)

Here's a thought: How about people post their favorite faces and face
combinations/uses? I'd like to see what folks are doing.

Right now, I'm extremely enamored of the Eras family, as well as the Stone
Serif & Stone Sans. Of course, this isn't too exciting, but I'm just getting
started.

Dan Becker
Macalester College
ST. Paul MN

PS - If anyone says Times & Helvetica, I'll be VERY disappointed!

amy.bbs@shark.cs.fau.edu (Amy Brown) (04/21/91)

sdbeck@mac.cc.macalstr.edu writes:

> Here's a thought: How about people post their favorite faces and face
> combinations/uses? I'd like to see what folks are doing.
> 
> Right now, I'm extremely enamored of the Eras family, as well as the Stone
> Serif & Stone Sans. Of course, this isn't too exciting, but I'm just getting
> started.
> 
> Dan Becker
> Macalester College
> ST. Paul MN
> 
> PS - If anyone says Times & Helvetica, I'll be VERY disappointed!


If anyone says Times and Helvetica... that is SAD.  I like fancier font 
types, like University Roman and Revue.  The ones I seem to see used.... 
and seemingly grossly OVERUSED... around here are Dom Casual, Brush Script, 
and Mistral.


Amy Brown
amy.bbs@shark.cs.fau.edu

"If what's WEIRD to 'normal' people is NORMAL to 'weird' people, then what 
is weird and what is normal???"
          -My unanswered life story

"Stay sane inside insanity..."
          -Columbia, RHPS

cbwood@churchy.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Clifton B. Wood) (04/21/91)

In article <1991Apr20.044900.260@mac.cc.macalstr.edu> sdbeck@mac.cc.macalstr.edu writes:
>Right now, I'm extremely enamored of the Eras family, as well as the Stone
>Serif & Stone Sans. Of course, this isn't too exciting, but I'm just getting
>started.

Well, I have some of the Eras family for the ATM for Windows on my PC dos
machine. The only problem with it is that the files that I have (and I have 
had many copies of eras before) the family itself seems to have no spaces.

You wouldn't happen to know of either a way to fix this or an anonymous ftp site
where I can get the working files, would you?

>Dan Becker
>Macalester College
>ST. Paul MN

					Cliff

					cbwood@gnu.ai.mit.edu

Andrew Gilmartin (04/22/91)

In article <BJ8P11w163w@shark.cs.fau.edu> amy.bbs@shark.cs.fau.edu (Amy Brown)
writes:

>If anyone says Times and Helvetica... that is SAD.

If you want to distribute documents in processed electronic form (such as
PostScript) then Times, Helvetica, and the other base fonts of the orginal
LaserWriter are a lingua franca.

-- Andrew Gilmartin
   Computing & Information Services
   Brown University
   (401) 863-7305
   andrew@brownvm.brown.edu

gwangung@milton.u.washington.edu (Just another theatre geek.....) (04/22/91)

In article <73024@brunix.UUCP> Andrew Gilmartin writes:
>In article <BJ8P11w163w@shark.cs.fau.edu> amy.bbs@shark.cs.fau.edu (Amy Brown)
>writes:
>>If anyone says Times and Helvetica... that is SAD.
>
>If you want to distribute documents in processed electronic form (such as
>PostScript) then Times, Helvetica, and the other base fonts of the orginal
>LaserWriter are a lingua franca.

	No, PostScript is lingua franca, period.  Don't make no difference if
you dump PostScript output to disk.....











-- 
-----
Roger Tang, gwangung@milton.u.washington.edu
Middle-class weenie, art nerd and all-around evil nasty spermchucker

sdbeck@mac.cc.macalstr.edu (04/23/91)

In article <73024@brunix.UUCP>, Andrew Gilmartin writes:
> In article <BJ8P11w163w@shark.cs.fau.edu> amy.bbs@shark.cs.fau.edu (Amy Brown)
> writes:
> 
>>If anyone says Times and Helvetica... that is SAD.
> 
> If you want to distribute documents in processed electronic form (such as
> PostScript) then Times, Helvetica, and the other base fonts of the orginal
> LaserWriter are a lingua franca.
> 
> -- Andrew Gilmartin

Thanks, Andrew, but I was asking about FAVORITE typeface combniations, not
ones mandated by necessity.

Dan Becker

amy.bbs@shark.cs.fau.edu (Amy Brown) (04/23/91)

Andrew Gilmartin writes:

> In article <BJ8P11w163w@shark.cs.fau.edu> amy.bbs@shark.cs.fau.edu (Amy Brown
> writes:
> 
> >If anyone says Times and Helvetica... that is SAD.
> 
> If you want to distribute documents in processed electronic form (such as
> PostScript) then Times, Helvetica, and the other base fonts of the orginal
> LaserWriter are a lingua franca.
> 
> -- Andrew Gilmartin

Yes, but as a FAVORITE font?  They are so overused (for reasons stated... 
they are standard typeaces) that they tend to get on your nerves after a 
while.  ANY font would get on my nerves after seeing DAY after DAY after 
DAY......

Amy Brown
amy.bbs@shark.cs.fau.edu

"If what's WEIRD to 'normal' people is NORMAL to 'weird' people, then what 
is weird and what is normal???"
          -My unanswered life story

"Stay sane inside insanity..."
          -Columbia, RHPS

robertk@lotatg.lotus.com (Robert Krajewski) (04/24/91)

In article <1991Apr20.044900.260@mac.cc.macalstr.edu> sdbeck@mac.cc.macalstr.edu writes:

   PS - If anyone says Times & Helvetica, I'll be VERY disappointed!

Well, they might be ubiquitous, but at least that combination doesn't
clash. Some other harmonious combinations:

Times and Univers (quite a few British and European books)
Adobe Garamond and Univers Condensed (some Adobe packaging)
Monotype Bembo and Gill Sans (the Tufte books, BCS Mac _Active Window_)
Monotype Joanna and Gill Sans (Gill's _Essay on Typography_)
Avant Garde and Caslon Open Face (ha ha ha ! just kidding ! really !)

kchen@Apple.COM (Kok Chen) (04/24/91)

In article <1991Apr20.044900.260@mac.cc.macalstr.edu> sdbeck@mac.cc.macalstr.edu writes:

>   PS - If anyone says Times & Helvetica, I'll be VERY disappointed!


Lucida, Lucida-Sans and Galileo :-).  Alright, where did I last
encounter that combination? :-) :-)


Kok Chen, AA6TY			kchen@apple.com
Apple Computer, Inc.

amanda@visix.com (Amanda Walker) (04/24/91)

robertk@lotatg.lotus.com (Robert Krajewski) writes:

   Avant Garde and Caslon Open Face (ha ha ha ! just kidding ! really !)

Ack.  Ptui.  I hope so...

How about:

Adobe Garamond and Univers Bold (or Condensed Bold)
Palatino and Univers Bold
Stone Serif and Univers Black
ITC Garamond and Univers Bold

Hmm... I see a trend developing :)...  Ignoring Univers for the moment:

Stone Serif and Stone Sans Semibold
ITC Garamond and Optima (getting sizes right can be tricky, though)
ITC Galliard and Helvetica Black
Melior and Franklin Gothic Heavy
Trump Mediaeval and Charlemagne

--
Amanda Walker						      amanda@visix.com
Visix Software Inc.					...!uunet!visix!amanda
-- 
GLENDOWER: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
HOTSPUR:   Why, so can I, or so can any man;
           But will they come when you do call for them?
		--Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I

rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) (04/24/91)

sdbeck@mac.cc.macalstr.edu writes:
> Here's a thought: How about people post their favorite faces and face
> combinations/uses? I'd like to see what folks are doing.
...
> PS - If anyone says Times & Helvetica, I'll be VERY disappointed!

Disappointed because you don't like it, or because it's too mundane?
Times and Helvetica aren't a bad pair; neither are they great.  (Sort of
like the average American marriage--it works OK; they fight a bit but
mostly things go on in a humdrum sort of way.  They're mismatched, but not
too badly.  Not my cup of tea.:-)

One combination I've just come to like is Palatino and Optima--in the usual
combination of bold sans-serif heads and such, with serifed body text.  I
came 'round to this in an unusual way--the first time I saw it, it looked
horrid!  That was because I was looking at a newsletter which had been
intended to be in Optima throughout, but somehow one page got Palatino for
the body text.  I lambasted it at the time, but an ediscussion with Bill
Ricker softened my attitude, and later I saw a large draft MS with the
Optima-head/Palatino-body combination and liked it.  (Rather, I looked at
the MS and found the type combination pleasing, then backed up to see what
it was.)  Next step was to run some large samples of the standard faces of
the two families, set them side-by-side and have a good, long look.  They
really do harmonize more than you might think.  (Yes, I know--and have
known all along--that they have the same designer.)

Optima has become one of my favorites for a...hmm, "sans-serif" isn't
right, but it isn't serifed...well, you know what I mean (don't you?)

Speaking of Zapf, what goes with Melior?
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd@ico.isc.com -or- ico!rcd       Boulder, CO   (303)449-2870
   ...While you were reading this, Motif grew by another kilobyte.

gwangung@milton.u.washington.edu (Just another theatre geek.....) (04/24/91)

	Hmmmmmm.....I like Goudy Old Style and Franklin Gothic Heavy....of course,
a lot of that is due to the fact I got both these fonts on clearance sale for
about $35 each.....still, i like the combination....

-- 
-----
Roger Tang, gwangung@milton.u.washington.edu
Middle-class weenie, art nerd and all-around evil nasty spermchucker

ronald@robobar.co.uk (Ronald S H Khoo) (04/25/91)

sdbeck@mac.cc.macalstr.edu writes:

> PS - If anyone says Times & Helvetica, I'll be VERY disappointed!

Well, I actually like Times very much, but not at 300dpi.
And downloading of fonts to the printer gets boring, so I tend to
do quick&dirty printing of manuals in Palatino, which is probably the
best of the "35" for that sort of thing.

But "favourite" ?  Hmmm... Arnold Bocklin ? :-)
-- 
Ronald Khoo <ronald@robobar.co.uk> +44 81 991 1142 (O) +44 71 229 7741 (H)

lee@sq.sq.com (Liam R. E. Quin) (04/26/91)

rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes:
>Times and Helvetica aren't a bad pair; neither are they great.  (Sort of
>like the average American marriage [...]
Well, I don't know about American marriages, but people throughout the latin-
alphabet world are getting used to Times and Helvetica...

>One combination I've just come to like is Palatino and Optima

Both fine faces, but both have a drawback -- Optima is extraordinarily
difficult to render at 300dpi or lower, so it often looks bad on laser
printers, although some are better than others.
Palatino-Italic also sufferes from jaggies, and really needs to be kerned
carefully.  The Adobe kerning pairs are reasonable.

Lee


-- 
Liam Russell Quin, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto... 416 963 8337... lee@sq.com
	   `What one person finds valuable others do not even notice.
	    And they do not notice that they do not notice.'
-- Scott Kim, `Interdisciplinary Communication', in `The Art of [HCI] Design'

tom@mims-iris.waterloo.edu (Tom Haapanen) (04/26/91)

> robertk@lotatg.lotus.com (Robert Krajewski) writes:
>> Avant Garde and Caslon Open Face (ha ha ha ! just kidding ! really !)

Amanda Walker <amanda@visix.com> writes:
> Ack.  Ptui.  I hope so...

Hey!  Why is everyone picking on Avant Garde?  I happen to like it a lot,
even though I will admit that I never use it for any documents longer than
a page.  However, my consulting company's logo looks quite good in Avant
Garde...

For longer documents, I use a mixture of Helvetica and CG Omega (does anyone
else out there use Omega?) for sans serif, and either Times, Palatino or
Century Schoolbook for the serif font.  I haven't found a serif font I 'd
*really* like a lot; the Stone Serif looks good, but I can't spend any more
money on fonts right now...

[ \tom haapanen --- university of waterloo --- tom@mims-iris.waterloo.edu ]
[ "i don't even know what street canada is on"               -- al capone ]

rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) (04/27/91)

lee@sq.sq.com (Liam R. E. Quin) writes:
  rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes:
...
> >One combination I've just come to like is Palatino and Optima

> Both fine faces, but both have a drawback -- Optima is extraordinarily
> difficult to render at 300dpi or lower, so it often looks bad on laser
> printers, although some are better than others...

True, and I should have mentioned that.  At best, you can use the 300 dpi
printer to preview the pages.  The use I suggested--Palatino text with
Optima-Bold headings--is a tad better, because Optima Bold is slightly more
forgiving, and you're likely to have the headings about a point larger than
the body text.  Still, Optima doesn't even start to behave at 300 dpi until
you're up to 13 or 14 pt.  It's too bad, because it's really an excellent
design.

It leads me to ask if there's any near-term promise of low-end printers
with significantly better resolution--say 450 dpi or better, preferably
more like 600?  I've been told that 400 dpi is just about the limit for
current dry toners, and that a change in toner/technology is going to be
expensive for the time being.  The past few years have seen 300 dpi getting
cheaper by the day; it's really an incredible bargain any more.  But I
haven't seen or heard any progress in pushing the resolution upward for
low-end printers, other than HP's resolution enhancement.
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd@ico.isc.com -or- ico!rcd       Boulder, CO   (303)449-2870
   ...While you were reading this, Motif grew by another kilobyte.

karl@apple-gunkies.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Karl Berry) (05/03/91)

> Optima doesn't even start to behave at 300 dpi until you're up to 13
> or 14 pt. 
When Hermann Zapf designed Optima, he did so for hot metal typesetters.
When CRT typesetters came along and Hell (I think it was Hell, maybe it
was Stempel) asked him to rework the font for digital storage, he was
never happy with the results -- and this is at typesetter resolutions!
(I got this information out of Hermann Zapf and His Design Philosophy
which is, incidentally, set in Optima.)

He designed other faces specifically for digital media (typesetter
resolutions, though, though laser printer resolutions -- as far as I
know Lucida (by Charles Bigelow & Kris Holmes) was the first to be
specifically designed for everything from screens to typesetters) --
Edison is the one I can remember offhand.  It's too bad those faces
haven't been more widely adopted.

karl@cs.umb.edu