Fonts

[Actaeon]

I would imagine that this community is about as likely as any to contain a few graphic design nerds. This poll is intended to troll both the dedicated typographer (because it's incomplete) and the layman (because it exists at all), as well as take advantage of this community's relatively high tolerance level for inane polls.

[Lilith]

why would anyone use a single typeface style for every possible purpose. i've taken like one visual design subject and even i know that is a terrible idea

 

also papyrus is font of the year every year

[Trenton.]

What do you think?

 

I would use Comic Sans all the time, but I got in trouble for over-abusing fonts about a year ago.

[Tyranicus]

I have a browser extension that converts Comic Sans to Helvetica. It makes the internet much more bearable.

[Dintiradan]

Your... palette?... of fonts should contain at least one serif, one sans serif, and one monospaced, because they all exist for different reasons (serifs for small text and large bodies of text, sans serif for large text and headlines, monospaced for when alignment is important). But I tend to just take the default option that OpenOffice/LaTeX/baposter/beamer/etc. gives me. They know more about design than I do.

[keira]

Romande ADF, Rockwell, Hightower Text, Universalis ADF. Used to use Century Gothic some but not much lately.

[Actaeon]

You're right, of course, Dinti. I favor Baskerville, Garamond, Helvetica (by default/process of elimination), and Courier, myself. Overall, though, I think serif fonts just LOOK better.

Originally Posted By: Lilith

papyrus is font of the year every year

Papyrus is an amazing font. The fact that it's overused doesn't reflect on its quality, just on the self control of the populous.

Originally Posted By: Tyranicus

I have a browser extension that converts Comic Sans to Helvetica. It makes the internet much more bearable.

Do they have it for Chrome*? If so, kindly direct me to it.

 

* Perhaps a browser poll is an order one of these days.

[keira]

Oh, and on a related note, am I the only person who wants to stab anyone who markets a product by using absurdly large, all-lowercase Helvetica?

[Actaeon]

No. But hipsters deserve a thread of their own.

 

Anyway, I deeply fear that I am one.

[keira]

I was a hipster back when not being cool wasn't cool.

[A less presumptuous name.]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

also papyrus is font of the year every year

For that reason, I no longer use papyrus. It was great 5 years ago, but then it became so overused that it is almost taboo now.

I generally stick with Times (New Roman) for any sort of paper writing, but I'll switch it up to whatever looks good in the context of something more artistic.

[Cairo Jim]

I have no idea what font I'm using, so I guess I just use whetever default font is being used. Most of it looks the same anyways.

[Student of Trinity]

Originally Posted By: Homage

I was a hipster back when not being cool wasn't cool.

I was cool before being cool was cool.

I'd be sitting there, sipping my martini, and George Washington would be all like, "Pray, sir, why do you so constantly wear those darkened spectacles?" And I'd be like, "Hey, I don't ask you about your wooden teeth, George." He'd calm down and buy me another drink, but he didn't really get it. Nobody did.

[Dintiradan]

[Lilith]

hey while we are having fontchat maybe people can help me with a font conundrum

 

i'm looking for a font for a project i'm working on, and i want it to be something that looks ancient but with a futuristic edge. like, the kind of font that the aliens who sank atlantis and helped the ancient egyptians build the pyramids would have used in their spaceship instruction manuals, if that makes sense

 

i kind of want something with a feel halfway between this and this

 

any suggestions?

[Tyranicus]

Originally Posted By: Actaeon

Originally Posted By: Tyranicus

I have a browser extension that converts Comic Sans to Helvetica. It makes the internet much more bearable.

Do they have it for Chrome*? If so, kindly direct me to it.

* Perhaps a browser poll is an order one of these days.

I have no idea if there is a similar Chrome extension. I use Safari.

[Randomizer]

Originally Posted By: Lilith

i'm looking for a font for a project i'm working on, and i want it to be something that looks ancient but with a futuristic edge. like, the kind of font that the aliens who sank atlantis and helped the ancient egyptians build the pyramids would have used in their spaceship instruction manuals, if that makes sense.

I don't know the name, but there's the one they used for Star Trek movies.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Randomizer

I don't know the name, but there's the one they used for Star Trek movies.

the Galaxy/Star Cine font? yeah i looked at that one too and it was pretty good but a little too far on the futuristic side (also a little too recognisably Star Trek). ideally i want something that will look equally at home carved on a stone tablet or displayed on a holographic viewscreen

[Student of Trinity]

I'm a bit confused, because the aliens that built the pyramids wouldn't have used the Roman alphabet. I presume you want legible texts, though. Or could you go with nonsense glyphs and subtitles?

 

Those little circles in every Orbital Sling glyph look silly. Futuristic ought to be more functional than that. Krasni Fellows might do in a pinch. Add a little drop shadow to make the characters look metallic and raised, and that might be enough.

 

I'd be inclined to try something like a very plain and simple font, but then decorate the characters randomly with something totally incomprehensible, like a little array of multicolored dots stuck beside or above every character. Supposed to indicate that these alien texts contain a whole lot more information than you can read.

[Lilith]

ok gonna put my capital-letters hat on to answer this post bevcause it brings up some good points

 

Originally Posted By: Student of Trinity

I'm a bit confused, because the aliens that built the pyramids wouldn't have used the Roman alphabet. I presume you want legible texts, though. Or could you go with nonsense glyphs and subtitles?

 

Yeah, no, it has to be actual readable text; I'll be using it for things like chapter headings and possibly book covers, so I want a fairly distinctive and stylish display font but one that's still easily readable. As for aliens not using the Roman alphabet, Chinese restaurant menus can still use fonts inspired by Chinese calligraphy even when they're printed in English, you know? The point is not to be in any sense realistic but to communicate the right "feel" to the audience.

 

Quote:

Those little circles in every Orbital Sling glyph look silly. Futuristic ought to be more functional than that. Krasni Fellows might do in a pinch. Add a little drop shadow to make the characters look metallic and raised, and that might be enough.

 

Yeah, Orbital Sling is kind of the upper limit of how much stylistic weirdness I can tolerate, especially since it's taken to the point of making the text slightly hard to read. I considered Inside and discarded it because while I liked some aspects of the design, it was practically unreadable. Krasni Fellows is much better on that count, but it looks just a little too scripty for me; ideally I think I'd want something slightly more angular. Still, if I don't find anything better, I'd say it's the frontrunner so far.

 

Quote:

I'd be inclined to try something like a very plain and simple font, but then decorate the characters randomly with something totally incomprehensible, like a little array of multicolored dots stuck beside or above every character. Supposed to indicate that these alien texts contain a whole lot more information than you can read.

 

I can see what you're driving at here. The Stargate font would actually be a decent option, if it weren't (a) a little too simple and pedestrian and ( obviously borrowed from Stargate.

[Balladeer]

Fantazian?

Gamma Sentry looks like Inside if you consider it more readable. and Generation Nth has the dots without being overly sci-fi.

Jump Troops?

Planet X and Planet Z have the dots.

Psuedo Saudi has that hieroglyphic look.

Yggdrasil? I like the O on this one.

 

Guess you can browse the others if you haven't looked there yet.

[Callie]

I generally just use the default because I'm boring, although I really don't like Calibri or whatever it's called.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: Jewels in Black

Fantazian?
Gamma Sentry looks like Inside if you consider it more readable. and Generation Nth has the dots without being overly sci-fi.
Jump Troops?
Planet X and Planet Z have the dots.
Psuedo Saudi has that hieroglyphic look.
Yggdrasil? I like the O on this one.

Guess you can browse the others if you haven't looked there yet.

Thanks for the tip! Of those I think I like Fantazian best, although the way the letters have disconnected parts make it look a bit too stencilled.

[Dikiyoba]

Originally Posted By: Excalibur

although I really don't like Calibri or whatever it's called.

Agreed. Calibri sucks.

Dikiyoba doesn't actually mind when other people use it, but for whatever reason Dikiyoba can't stand using it.

[nikki.]

I almost exclusively use Times New Roman, unless I'm writing something for me, in which case I'll stick with the default font in whatever program I'm using. In fairness I should probably just make TNR the default, but I'm fairly lazy and it isn't a whole heap of bother to change it once per document.

[SamSniped]

The five fonts I primarily use are Rockwell (for typing if I don't want to use TNR), Papyrus (same as Rockwell), Times New Roman (my default when typing), Copperplate Gothic (for titles and headings), and Cloister Black (a medieval-looking font that I use for titles).

[Alorael at Large]

Times New Roman, or occasionally a nostalgic Helvetica.

 

—Alorael, who likes those sci-fi fonts quite a bit. Maybe he'll find a use for them somehow.

[Cairo Jim]

I liked the pseudo arabic Jewels posted. Looks nice, but a bit impractical for every day use.

[In Half Now]

I've had my standard writing program's font set to Verdana for years. It works and I'm satisfied I don't need to think about fonts.

 

For various graphic design things thinking about fonts actually gets interesting, of course.

[The Mystic]

I normally use Times New Roman for whatever office suite I'm using. Everything else gets the default setting, unless it sucks.

[Rowen]

I type in the cat font.

[Trenton.]

I like the cat for comic sans

[Dikiyoba]

Most of the cats don't really seem to fit the font, but Helvetica and Comic Sans are perfect.

 

Dikiyoba now wonders if there are dinosaurs and fonts that belong together. Hmm. A project for another day, perhaps?

[Trenton.]

Comic sans is the only font anyone really needs anyway.

[Dantius]

What, no Calibri? I am disappointed.

[Trenton.]

Why would you be uncomfurtable about that?

 

Oh... Nevermind.

[A less presumptuous name.]

Is Mesquite STD Salem from Sabrina, the Teenage Witch?

[Spid3rW3b Fan]

I voted, "i could care less" because none of the options actually apply to me.

[Actaeon]

Wouldn't that be "Other", then? I can always tell how sound a poll is by how many people chose that last option. This one, for instance, is pretty tenuous.