Desert Island Fonts - Round 3 | June 27, 2005

If you could only buy 6 fonts, what would they be?

Dan Cederholm

Triplex

I’d have to have this one, as it’s used in the SimpleBits logo. I really dig the “e”.

Mini7

Especially “Condensed”. Can’t live without this one for tiny interface bits.

Comic Sans

Gotcha.

VAG Rounded

I just purchased this for a project, and I’m loving it’s friendly roundness. So much better than Arial Rounded.

DIN

So common, but so euro-sans great.

Prensa

I need a serif. This one is quite nice.

Richard Rutter

Myriad Pro

A highly screen readable, modern sans-serif. And it’s our corporate typeface.

Lucida Bright

A serif accompaniment to Lucida Grande (and designed to be readable on screen and in print). The italic is also infinitely superior to Georgia.

Minion Pro

An elegant, highly readable Garamond derivative by Robert Slimbach (who also designed Myriad). My serif of choice for printed body copy. Works well on screen for headings and has a fabulous true italic.

Syntax

A tight, tidy sans-serif that works well with Minion. Would be good for clients keen on classic rather than modern typographical feel.

Univers

Because you should always have a grotesque in your armoury, and this is a classic designed by Adrian Frutiger. Comes in heaps of different weights.

Avenir

A fairly random sixth choice, chosen for its flexibility. Modern sans-serif for headings that works well in all sizes.

Jason Santa Maria

Franklin Gothic

Good big and small, for headlines and body copy. It’s a workhorse a sans serif.

Garamond

The grand daddy classic. It hurts to think of how many fonts were based off of Garamond (like the also gorgeous Sabon). It’s a beautiful achievement and a quintessential face.

Unibody

One of the only pixel fonts that really matters, and includes the best pixel italic around. It’s more readable and practical than Mini 7, and carries quite a bit more personality.

Caslon

Dependable and flexible as hell. Caslon drips with sophistication.

Gill Sans

Stylish and subdued in the same breath, and nothing more than it needs to be.

Freight Family

A new face on the block, but oh so grand. Perfectly readable at minute sizes, breathtaking in a headline and a pleasure to set. You could use this font 10 different ways and not get sick of it.

Posted at June 27, 2005 10:12 AM

Comments

AkaXakA said on June 27, 2005 1:34 PM

Love the Freight!

Zachary Lewis said on June 27, 2005 1:46 PM

I’m really digging Freight, too.

Mike Stenhouse said on June 27, 2005 3:10 PM

Any chance of linking up Dan and Richard’s fonts? I’ve been really enjoying clicking through everyone’s choices… A few surprises in there!

Luke Barrow said on June 27, 2005 4:19 PM

I’d like to echo Mike’s request. Checking out the fonts is the best parts of these articles.

Andy Budd said on June 28, 2005 7:11 AM

Done

Nice Paul said on June 29, 2005 10:10 AM

Lovin’ these “Fuck Comic Sans” and “DIN” t-shirts.

DIN’s a great and versatile font, but as common as muck. BTExtraBold is very similar, but ever-so-slightly curved at the tips, and is great to use. Unfortunately I think I’m only really allowed to use it on projects for BT, since it’s not a publicly available font. Should be though!

pylorns said on June 30, 2005 5:31 PM

What did you design your button for that master class in that is on your left side bar? Photoshop? If so how’d you go about doing it?

Nick Toye said on June 30, 2005 6:01 PM

Yeah, but why bother purchasing all these fonts when we are restricted to what fonts we can use on a PC. Image Replacement Text - fair enough, but for everything else like dynamically created text you have to use safe fonts. Or am I wide of the mark here?

allgood2 said on June 30, 2005 11:05 PM

I love Myriad and Minion, we’ve used them as our official fonts for letters, contracts and brochures. Both very beautiful and highly versatile in their use.

paul haine said on July 3, 2005 3:39 PM

“why bother purchasing all these fonts when we are restricted to what fonts we can use on a PC.”

Nick: CD covers, magazines, portfolios, leaflets, books, advertising, posters…it’s not all about web design. Also, where I’m working at the moment makes a lot of websites for books, so we tend to use the book cover fonts for graphical headers for the site — they’re admittedly usually static sites, though, but sIFR is available for dynamic replacement…

McClane said on July 9, 2005 10:15 PM

Who are these people on your survey? It’s a weak list.You forgot to include Dean Allen in your survey:

http://textism.com/textfaces/