Desert Island Fonts - Round 1 | June 15, 2005
If you could only buy 6 fonts, what would they be?
John Hicks
Helvetica
It has to be doesn’t it? THE timeless classic - not the most beautiful typeface (more utilitarian), but certainly the most adaptable, and the full family is essential. Helvetica Neue Light has been overused on anything to do with health/lifestyle, but its still good.
Avenir
I’ve only recently cottoned on to this one, but works as good as a display font as it does for body text. What’s good enough for Veer…
Monark
A bit of Identikal goodness, this is the face I’ve adopted for my logotype, so that’s an must.
Apex Sans
The other sans-serif that I use. Thirstype’s contemporary sans-serif, but not one that will date too quickly. Hopefully this will be an Open Type font soon, and save the current nightmare of my font menus.
Mrs Eaves
I guess I had to include a serif in this list, so this gorgeous face from Emigre with it’s sumptuous ligatures gets my vote. What’s good enough for Radiohead…
Carta
A very useful dingbats font. Mainly map symbols, but many make a good starting point for little icons.
Josh Williams
Futura
If I were stuck with one sans serif font for the rest of my life, this would be it. No one ever got fired for using Futura in a logo. Maybe its not too creative, but you can’t argue with its elegance.
Ocean Sans
More people ask about my use of Ocean than any other font. You don’t see it used much at all, but it’s truly beautiful. Note the subtle diamonds on the “i” and “j”. We use the font at firewheeldesign.com for our headline text.
Elysium
Another Firewheel favorite… works great at large and small sizes. Great ligatures.
Mini 7
The quintessential pixel font. Gotta have this if you’re into digital design.
Odyssey
Quite possibly the best looking pixel font there is. If I have a little more space to work with, I’ll use Odyssey over Mini 7.
Dearest
Because sometime you’re going to need a script-ish font, and this is my current favorite.
Greg Storey
Myriad Pro
Take Helvetica and throw it in the trash. Myriad has long been my sans-serif pick up truck and no overuse by Apple websites is going to change that. With Myriad around there is simply no need to be using Helvetica or that awful Microsoft knockoff Arial.
Frutiger
If anything Frutiger makes the list because this was the primary typeface for Studio Archetype, which is my all time favorite web design shop. Frutiger is a nice change of pace from using Meta FF throughout the years.
Minion
It’s the only serif family that I care to use anymore. Unlike other Times New Roman forgeries, Minion has it’s own look and feel that gives off a nice hot metal type look from the days of academia. The small caps alternate makes titles a joy.
Bickham Script
There’s always a need for a good script font and after running through the gambit, Bickham continues to please the eye with it’s clean curves and plethora of alternate beginning and endings.
TV Nord
I love condensed type and EF Nord stands tall among other, more popular faces but this one has a killer ‘g’ and that makes it worth having alone.
FGC-DKD
I have tried several times to buy this font without success. Designed by an independent font designer who lives in Japan and doesn’t read/write English. I even enlisted the help of Steven from Typographi.ca and his global network but never got through.
Posted at June 15, 2005 9:04 AM
David Hughes said on June 15, 2005 8:36 AM
What an interesting and for me timely article.
I’m new to the design side of web design and typography and fonts is an area I have much to learn about.
The links in Jon’s FAQ to two font sites has helped me start to find ‘cool’ fonts.
Thanks
David