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oh personally, i'd rather stare at a concrete wall and shake pepper into my
eyes than have to read another book that uses TNR or Arial(the fonts that we
currently use here, by the by, although i'm campaigning vigorously to
switch to something less overused).
But absolutely, typography is part of the overall design. I used to work as
a typographer, so I know what a difference font selection can make in the
overall look of a book.
However, you can obsess about fonts and tweak your typography ad infinitum,
but only another anally-obsessive typomaniac is likely to notice most of the
subtleties.
The other good thing about sticking with the standardsis that they are safe
and more or less eternal... you don't run the risk of looking out of date by
using the currently-trendy font that may make your design look passe.
-----Original Message-----
From: Dick Margulis
Sent: Monday, October 25, 2004 2:12 PM
To: Wright, Lynne
Subject: Re: Fonts?
[off-list]
Yes, you can do that. But once you go to the effort of creating a unique
look, don't you think that best practice would be to follow through and
select the fonts that work best with that design?
Arial and TNR have their place, and I've certainly used them myself. If
platform compatibility is the key issue, or if browser output is an
important consideration, then using such universal fonts has its
advantages. If we're talking about print (or PDF) pages, however, it is
usually possible to do much better at little or no additional cost.
Wright, Lynne wrote:
> You can use the same fonts as everyone else, but still create a unique
look
> through document design.
>
> -----------------
> However, by using these fonts, you are also throwing away any chance
> of developing a unique style for your company or client. In fact, you are
> guaranteeing that yoru documents will look the same as everybody
> else's.
>
> Of course, going for uniqueness also has its downside. If you want
> that uniqueness to show, then you need to share documents as PDF, or
> possibly postscript, or, if it's really important, to include the fonts
with
> the document.
>
> That's true, but I think it's possible to strike a balance. For example,
> I said earlier we use Arial and Courier New fonts for our text. But we
> do use a custom font for the headers in many (not all) of our documents.
>
> We also use customized graphics in all of our documents, all of which
> have the same look and feel. (And we always send out documents in PDF
> form, never in Word.)
>
> Gayla
>
> Lynne Wright
> Technical Communications
> Positron Inc.
> 5101 Buchan St. H4P 2R9
> (514) 345-2200
> fax: 345-2272
>
>
>
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