I think I blew the joke with the blog title.
What I’m trying to say is —
Since switching from PC-Land to Mac-opolis, I’ve since lost a considerable number of the fonts I’d built up on that old PC. Which is not a huge deal, really — many of them were total pants. Just the same, it has come time, I think, to not so much replenish the same fonts on the Mac but to build a bigger and better army with which I can write profanity and pithy sayings in very big, very pretty letters.
And so, I ask you about font.
What’s your favorite font?
To write in? For titles? For posters or other typographical design work?
Bonus points if it’s a font I can download free or cheap somewhere!
This isn’t just about me replenishing lost fonts, though —
I am genuinely curious which fonts you love and use the most.
FONT ME, BABY.
alyshahayden says:
My favourite is ‘Before the Rain’ – you can download the personal use .ttf for free, but the site has a link to purchase for commercial if you’re that way inclined.
http://www.dafont.com/before-the-rain.font
April 1, 2013 — 6:14 AM
Alex Hurst says:
I love Aquiline Two from dafont.com…. it’s free, public-domain, all that jazz. Here: http://www.dafont.com/aquiline-two.font?l%5B%5D=10&l%5B%5D=1 They have 1,000s of fonts and let you filter out the ones that are only shareware or for personal use. 🙂
April 1, 2013 — 6:16 AM
Wendy says:
I know it kind of like a font only a girl would use, but I’m fond of BPreplay:
http://www.fontspace.com/backpacker/bpreplay
There are hundreds of fonts you can download on that site.
April 1, 2013 — 6:17 AM
Wendy says:
“kind of looks like…”
It’s too early in the morning to be leaving comments…
April 1, 2013 — 6:19 AM
Mr Urban Spaceman says:
I have a soft spot for A Charming Font. Top-side it looks nice and curly, but underneath it’s like sharp little baby dragon teeth. http://www.dafont.com/a-charming-font.font
Couldn’t really be used for typing a large block of anything you want to be readable at quick-glance but it would look nice for a creepy title.
April 1, 2013 — 6:24 AM
Veronica Sicoe says:
For writing and printing manuscripts I prefer Palatino Linotype (comes with MS Word). It’s super clean and easy on the eyes regardless if it’s normal or italicized, and I’ve gotten very fond of it. As far as I know it’s available for Mac, and Scrivener most certainly has it. You can also download it here, but it cost quite a buck, which is not. cool.
April 1, 2013 — 6:25 AM
London Crockett says:
Palatino Linotype is great because it has super robust glyph support. Have an Serbian name you need to set? It’s got you covered. But why isn’t it cool for people who spend their lives designing type to make a living? It’s a serious font that took hundreds, if not thousands, of hours to create and perfect. Designing a quality, extensive typeface is a hard-to-master skill.
April 3, 2013 — 1:14 AM
Alex Beecroft says:
I like Bolton http://www.dafont.com/bolton.font in its many variations for graphics stuff because it’s decorative enough without losing any readability even at small sizes. I also like Morpheus http://www.dafont.com/morpheus.font when you absolutely have to go spiky while still being legible.
April 1, 2013 — 6:53 AM
Mozette says:
I love using Tahoma. It comes with Word 2010 and I’ve been using it with my work for some years now. It’s clean and easily read – especially in size 14 (yep, I’m half blind and need specs!) Otherwise, I put everything I write in double-space so it’s easy on the eye right up until I want to upload it onto my blog… then, it’s blocked, put into single space and then copied and pasted where I want it to be. 😀
When I go back to the document, I leave it the way it originally and resave with the double line spacing… make it easier to read and edit later on.
Yeah, I’m forever editing my stuff…. I’m so picky. 😛
April 1, 2013 — 7:54 AM
Tom Armbruster says:
Yep. I’m a Tahoma fan as well.
April 1, 2013 — 6:22 PM
ergeller57 says:
I am a fan of Joel Friedlander’s blog re all things related to book design. Here is the link to his pithy discussion re fonts: http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2009/08/5-favorite-fonts/
Personally, I like the classic, elegant, readable, and free Garamond. I know, not fancy enough for you.
April 1, 2013 — 8:02 AM
terribleminds says:
Not fancy enough? Fie on that. Garamond is my go-to font.
— c.
April 1, 2013 — 9:44 AM
Aerin says:
I don’t have any particulars, but I frequently cruise dafont.com looking for new and interesting ones. The ability to preview specific text is hugely helpful, especially if I’m designing things.
April 1, 2013 — 8:05 AM
darah says:
Comic-fonts.com…? I have no sweet clue what the url is but I’m sure you can Google search, or the kind people around probably know. People? Help?
April 1, 2013 — 8:10 AM
Holly says:
Eh, fonts! Fonts! My favourite form of procrastination (that and adjusting margins). Yeah, dafont.com is awesome. I agree with Mozette – Tahoma is very simple and clean. My favourite for writing in is Hei, which should be on your Mac already. It’s particularly pleasing in dark grey (although the oddly spaced apostrophes take some getting used to–if someone else is going to read it I usually replace them with Arial apostrophes).
Some fun ones:
http://www.dafont.com/a-damn-mess.font
http://www.dafont.com/angry-prego.font
http://www.dafont.com/bambino-tw.font
http://www.dafont.com/behind-lines.font
http://www.dafont.com/bleeding-cowboys.font
I’m only on B. Agh. Stop me. Stop.
April 1, 2013 — 8:22 AM
mwschmeer says:
You can take your PC fonts with you! If you still have your PC, find the fonts, copy them to a USB flash drive, and then plug that sucker into your Mac. Drag the all the fonts to ~/Library/Fonts/ to install them just in your account (the “~” means “your user account name”) or “Your Hard Drive Name”/Library/Fonts/ to allow access for all accounts on your Mac.
As for my favorite, I like Cambria, which used to be free from Microsoft. I’ve also got a soft spit in my hard for open source fonts such as Bitstream Vera, Crimson, DejaVu, Liberation, and Merriweather.
And I LOVE typewriter fonts. Yeah, this is nostalgia talking. My favorites are TravelingTypewriter, vtRemingtonPortable, Cella, and DS VTCorona.
Check out The League of Moveable Type, too: http://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/
April 1, 2013 — 8:33 AM
Axl T says:
American Typewriter is a great one too
April 1, 2013 — 1:26 PM
Teresa Reasor says:
I write in Century School book. It’s clear, looks like text books, and is spaced nicely so that it’s easy for me to read. But it’s a commercial font and if you try to embed it in anything you have to pay a fee. My formatter recently sent me to http://www.fontsquirrel.com/ to look at some fonts for a newspaper article in my short story. You may want to check some of their stuff out.
Teresa R.
April 1, 2013 — 8:33 AM
mwschmeer says:
you know, I really hate autocorrect. “soft spit in my hard”? Man. That should be “soft spot in my heart”.
April 1, 2013 — 8:34 AM
HBNole says:
I dunno, I kinda liked it the autocorrect way. Very evocative!
April 7, 2013 — 2:58 PM
Raechel Hudson says:
My current love is one called Champagne and Limousines. It’s crisp, it’s classy, and totally delicious.
http://www.dafont.com/champagne-limousines.font
April 1, 2013 — 8:56 AM
pk says:
For writing, I like Adobe’s first open source font release, source code pro: http://blogs.adobe.com/typblography/2012/09/source-code-pro.html
Source Sans is also a nice new font.
Also, if you’re on an Apple now, you might check out Ulysses. Version 3 should be fantastic and will be coming out within the next few days.
April 1, 2013 — 8:57 AM
c o r i s s a (@corissaep) says:
I love Averia Serif Libre for all kinds of writings… But ultimately IM Fell (of all kinds) is my absolute favorite. Both are classic, easy on the eyes, and remind me of the days of printing presses and lovely type…
April 1, 2013 — 9:00 AM
c o r i s s a (@corissaep) says:
PS: http://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/IM+Fell+English and http://www.google.com/fonts/specimen/Averia+Serif+Libre
April 1, 2013 — 9:02 AM
Holly says:
Thanks for pointing me towards Averia! That’s a lovely one. The website I found it on (Open Fonts Library) is a great find too.
No no no no no NO. No more fonts. I should be working.
April 1, 2013 — 11:04 AM
Steph says:
Avenir. Came across it when I started using the journal app Day One, and now I use it everywhere. Lovely font.
April 1, 2013 — 9:17 AM
Greymattersplat (@Greymattersplat) says:
Why not just use Comic Sans for everything?
Also, I kinda dig this font, which you can pay for with a tweet. http://www.bariol.com/
April 1, 2013 — 9:21 AM
Tanis Mallow says:
Greymattersplat – get thee to McSweeney’s. Right (write) now. http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/im-comic-sans-asshole
April 1, 2013 — 10:16 AM
ergeller57 says:
Okay, that was worth the price of admission right there. Thanks for that.
April 2, 2013 — 1:23 PM
emily says:
Gotta say Helvetica, because it communicates without distracting or influencing the tone. Someone wise once said “If your readers notice the font, then you picked the wrong one.”
April 1, 2013 — 9:22 AM
Shae Connor says:
I’m a Georgia girl, right down to my fonts. It’s a common one, but that makes it easy to use most everywhere. 🙂
April 1, 2013 — 9:25 AM
Abby says:
Georgia is my writing font too! Seriously, I can never really feel right about writing until I’ve got it on Georgia. For titles, though, I tend to like big Arial-esque types, especially if they’re distressed. I recommend the Skyfall font if you can find it on one of those free font sites! 🙂
April 1, 2013 — 9:29 AM
Mrs G says:
I am a massive font nerd. I’ve read books about the emergency of typefaces. Hell, I even have a font that I coded out of my own handwriting. However, I’m all about the sans serif for most of my writing, particularly those that I want other people to be able to read. I tend to favour Verdana and Tahoma because they are fairy ubiquitous and aren’t likely to make the recipient’s computer go kablooey if I send them something in a document format.
I have all kinds of fun with stuff I’m putting in PDF format and have literally a cubic fuckton of fonts. Some of my favourites are Batman Beat The Hell Outta Me and Face Your Fears.
April 1, 2013 — 9:46 AM
fredhicks says:
Body font I’m increasingly fond of Chaparral Pro: http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/adobe/chaparral/
Title fonts, Gotham remains a rock star for me.
Both ain’t cheap.
April 1, 2013 — 9:49 AM
sheribomb says:
I made my own handwriting font on YourFonts.com. It was easy and cheap (but not free) and I love it. I use it all the time and I love that no one else has the same font 🙂
April 1, 2013 — 9:51 AM
markarayner says:
For my own manuscripts, I’m a Garamond man. For websites n’such, the Google Fonts app is great, and if you see something you like, you can download it to your system too: http://www.google.com/fonts/
April 1, 2013 — 9:59 AM
jen says:
Cochin is lady bad ass.
April 1, 2013 — 10:04 AM
Tanis Mallow says:
Visually, I love Tahoma for both reading and writing. My only beef with it is: no italics. I like italics. Bummer.
April 1, 2013 — 10:14 AM
Patrick Regan says:
I screenwrite more than anything else, so I am a slave to Courier. But fortunately, noted Word-Nerd John August has saved all us screenmonkeys from that ugly-ass font with… COURIER PRIME!
April 1, 2013 — 10:14 AM
Justine Spencer says:
Fonts? We are talking fonts? Was I supposed to have a favorite? All this time I’ve been so concerned with just my writing and had no idea it was all about the fonts . . . I’m ruined.
April 1, 2013 — 10:21 AM
Adam Christopher says:
Ah, typography. My favourite subject (seriously). I maintain that hardly anyone understands it – writers included!
For composition I use Minion Pro – it’s a serif Roman font much easier on the eye than Times New Roman. Of course, submissions drafts are always reset in Times New Roman as standard (as everyone should do), with Arial used to indicate clearly where an alt-font is required (eg, in one book I have a computer read-out, so I used Arial to indicate those parts are different).
For graphics, posters, and other non-compositional design work, I’d recommend checking out The League of Moveable Type, who provide free fonts – and they are typographical designers, so it’s not just a random collection of tripe you usually find. Their font League Gothic is remarkable, for instance – I used it a lot on the original version of my website.
http://www.theleagueofmoveabletype.com/
I thoroughly recommend reading Just My Type by Simon Garfield. to get a good understanding of the basics of typography, if you haven’t already.
April 1, 2013 — 10:31 AM
Gregg says:
I second the Chaparral Pro love.
And I also love Myriad Pro. Simpe and clean, but way more style than Arial.
April 1, 2013 — 10:37 AM
Louise Sorensen says:
Fonts. You used to say (I believe) for the challenges use Arial, so I did for my short stories, and there was always a problem with wordpress not transforming all the Arial in my story to Times New Roman. I notice your blog (seems to be) is in Times New Roman, while the comments (seem to) originally type up in Arial.
I prefer Times New Roman both on kindle and paper and am now using it in my stories. I’ve found I do not like Arial to read stories by.
IMO too much fancy font is distracting from the story.
April 1, 2013 — 10:41 AM
Puck says:
I really love Garamond and Georgia, though sometimes Courier New is the shit.
I’ll definitely have to check out some of the other fonts the other commenters have thrown out. 🙂
April 1, 2013 — 10:47 AM
Elizabeth Poole says:
Oh fonts, how I love them. I have an entire list of fonts I use. I have certain fonts I use for drafting and others I use for editing.
My favorite drafting fonts are:
Bookman Old Style
Georgia
Century Schoolbook
Trebuchet MS
Book Antiqua
I know this sounds insane, but I pick my font based on the sort of book I am writing. If the main character is fun and spunky, I tend towards Trebuchet MS. Something serious or horror-filled gets Bookman Old Style, and the other fonts come in the middle.
For editing I use Tahoma, Verdana, or Palatino Linotype.
I had a lot of other weird fonts I acquired from DaFont, but for actual writing and editing I found myself leaning towards the cleaner look so I could actually read what I was writing.
The League of Movable Type sounds like an awesome place to check out fonts. *drool* I know where I am spending my afternoon….
April 1, 2013 — 10:47 AM
Sara Davies says:
Doesn’t sound insane at all. Different fonts have different personalities, and it’s good to choose the right one for the mood you’re trying to create.
April 1, 2013 — 2:16 PM
D. Moonfire says:
I’m fond of SIL’s Gentium. Mainly because it is a fairly clean font, it handles most diacritics fairly well, and it looks good in print. Gentium isn’t so hot in web view, mainly because of the italics.
While writing, I stick with Adobe’s Source Code Pro because I like how the letters look and it’s monospaced and scales well (I usually write at 400% zoom).
The Droid fonts are also fairly generic but available everywhere.
April 1, 2013 — 10:57 AM
Eric H. says:
For the most part, I find that fonts are largely invisible for me. Unless they are exceptionally bad or exceptionally good. I think that’s probably a mark of good design. Unless they are a graphical font, for signs or something, the reader shouldn’t have to spend their mental energies thinking about them.
April 1, 2013 — 11:01 AM
The Liz with the Aliens says:
I like Futura Medium for design. It comes standard on most machines. But it has clean lines and sharp points, and I like that. For writing, Arial works best for my eyes, but I love New Caledonia in printed books.
Google Fonts has some nice fonts. You can integrate them into your website, or you can download them to your own machine. The best part–you add fonts to your collection and download the entire collection as one file. Walkway and Quicksand are Google Fonts I use often.
Dafont.com has some great fonts, too.
April 1, 2013 — 11:23 AM
Pam Sheppard says:
re: Fonts….I just want LEGIBLE…I am so sick of ‘designers’ who think it’s SO cool to use colors like turquoise on blue, or 50% gray. Why anyone would want to compromise their content by submerging it into a lower contrast is beyond me. As for FONTS…dicey. On screen, san serif, but with a little weight, like Calibri. In print, serif, please. I like Palatino.
April 1, 2013 — 11:58 AM
Everett Powers (@EvPowers) says:
I lost a boatload of typefaces when I moved from Windows to Mac; none of my Type 1 and Multiple Master typefaces can be read by Mac. I had thousands invested. I complained to Adobe, but they said tough. Buy them all again at full retail.
I also own many Monotype typefaces like Dante, which is a great face for books (John Sandford’s books are set in Dante).
I’m not gonna give Adobe another buck. I’m looking into a program that will convert Type 1 and MM faces to OpenType, but I’m afraid I won’t be satisfied with the results. Sigh.
April 1, 2013 — 12:24 PM
Curtis Edmonds (@Curtis_Edmonds) says:
My book (which I will not plug here, even though I SO VERY MUCH WANT TO) is set in the state of Georgia, so I used the Georgia font when I wrote it. I have no real excuse for this.
April 1, 2013 — 1:19 PM
James Smythe (@jpsmythe) says:
I mostly seem to use Hoefler Text these days. Lovely and neat and classic-ish. Used to be a Times New Roman man. Just clean lines that look good and are easy to read.
April 1, 2013 — 1:44 PM
avstron says:
to write I used Segoe UI before realizing serif fonts are actually better to write and switched quickly to Cambria.
April 1, 2013 — 1:59 PM
Sara Davies says:
To write in, on screen, I use the default Calibri that comes with Word.
For print, I like Futura with Garamond, and Caslon with Gill Sans. Those are all classics that will give a mostly “invisible” feel in extended copy.
For those in a Futura rut, Univers is a nice option.
Futura is one of the rare sans serif fonts that can work for body copy because it’s easier for visually impaired people to read.
Most “expert” font sets come in a range of weights from light to extra bold, narrow to extended. You can get a lot of mileage out of two complete font sets by using the different weights. Contrast is what makes that work.
The standards wisdom is never to use more than three fonts on one page (never use more than one sans serif, more than one serif, or more than one script or character font on the same page, and a maximum of three fonts per page is a good guideline to follow)
For bold headings with a music-poster feel, Impact is good and I think cheap. Eurostyle Extended might be good there, too.
April 1, 2013 — 2:14 PM
Soy says:
My favorite for titles/author names is Steelfish (which is free).
Favorite for writing is Garamond or Courier New.
April 1, 2013 — 5:51 PM
Matt Davis says:
That’s definitely a toss up between Revolution (http://www.dafont.com/revolution-saji.font) and Requiem (http://www.dafont.com/requiem.font?text=Requiem). I used the latter for my book cover. Love the damn thing.
April 1, 2013 — 6:17 PM
Josh Rensch (@shouit) says:
Since I write code for my day job, I fell in love with Anonymous Pro, even for writing. Granted it doesn’t look all that fancy but who cares.
As for for coolness factor, someone did a free version simliar to the Planescape font. Love that as just a pretty font.
April 1, 2013 — 6:19 PM
Zack Frazier says:
My joint is that Century Goth (h) and Franklin Gothic Book (p) combo. I use it with some of the shading options in MS word, and kick out mad professional looking documents.
April 1, 2013 — 6:22 PM
Adelaida says:
All these cool fonts, I feel well, plain. But I’ve always been a big fan of Times, not Times New Roman, just Times. I like fonts that are easy on my eyes, so Garamond is also on that list too. Used to be a huge fan of Helvetica though, then turned to Times…never could figure out why…
April 1, 2013 — 6:22 PM
matt surly says:
I like GrecoDeko for a large font. at times, both playful and dead serious, and it seems to respond well to tweaking of height/width. http://www.dafont.com/greko-deco.font
April 1, 2013 — 6:23 PM