Top 10 to 20 Commercial/Professional Fonts!?

[cgmpowers]

I am a new designer and am sure I make many typographical mistakes such as combining fonts that do not belong together and the likes.

I spent the first 2 months of my employment as an in-house designer for a medical company until my Creative Director asked me why I never use anything but Trajan Pro and Myriad Pro in our print.

My reply was, I see you use it and nothing else (good answer I thought) and these two fonts make up our logotype logo for our company.

Ever since, I've been trying to find my "core" library of fonts that I like to use. My boss seems to like the two I mentioned earlier and occasionally he's now using Adobe Jenson Pro.

So.. I ask you.. What core fonts do you fall back on??

[BJMRGTIVR6]

just thinking off the top of my head and in no particular order:

Helvetica Neue
Garamond
Caslon
Frutiger
Gill Sans
Bodoni
Franklin Gothic
Futura
Optima
Officina Sans/Serif
Times (?)
Univers
Zapf Dingbats for symbols

Others I like:
Aachen
Avant Garde
Bickham Script (nice with opentype and swashes)
Impact
Myriad
Serpentine
Spring
Warnock

Now, I don't use the ones (right above) much but I like to look over the feel of the piece for the font choice. And there are many fonts that can be used as headers or such where you use it to grab attention. THe top list may seem long but sometimes using the same serif font on everything gets a little boring. Now I don't use many in a piece either.

[WannaBrie]

I use a lot of the fonts that BJMR uses, it depends upon the piece.. If you mean "core fonts" for blocks of type it also depends, but a lot of helvetica, myriad, gil sans for sans serifs; adobe jenson, times roman, adobe caslon for serif fonts (large bodies of copy) I saw an article on font usage on one of the gd mags, I'll try to find it...

[jennull]

I don't know that I have a 'core'...I usually just look at what I designing and figure out what I want from there. It ALWAYS depends on the tone or the intention of the job, unless a specific font was requested.

I will say that for fine print, I almost always use the Arial or Helvetica families; sans serif stuff...

[budafist]

Gill Sans
Futura
Helvetica
Univers

Garamond
Baskerville

Some fonts are designed so well they deserved to be "done to death" I look around me and I see Gill Sans just about everywhere. Maybe it's a New Zealand thing. We love Gill Sans to death around here...

[cgmpowers]

Thanks, I have most of those in my arsenal of fonts and what I don't have will look into those someday when needed.

I really appreciate the help, I want to expand my core fonts of use and see if I can wow my creative director.

[urstwile]

Referring to your Creative Director's question, your answer was more or less a good one, regarding the use of those fonts in the logo, although bear in mind that the logo font(s) don't necessarily dictate the body copy and headline fonts. In general though, whatever is chosen should blend well with the logo.

Many companies (at least the ones that paid for it) have graphic standards, which dictate which fonts are to be used in all materials. They don't just pick fonts willy nilly out of a hat (at least the larger ones don't) for every ad or collateral piece they produce, as it would diverge from their brand identity.

[cgmpowers]

I've been here 3 months and the Creative Director for over 1 year (the company is under 1.5 years old).

We do not have a graphic standards manual and slowly he's making one (much at the request of myself and others).

We use Myriad Pro and Trajan Pro in the logotype logo. As I said earlier, the majority of our print ads, direct mail and postcards use these typefaces. We use them for the headline, subhead and body copy, we also use them for the website url, 800# and call to action.

If our logo is using those two fonts, does our 800#, call to action (please call, get free this and that) and website have to be in those fonts too? Since they're so close to the logo--that's been my dilemia.

Chris



Referring to your Creative Director's question, your answer was more or less a good one, regarding the use of those fonts in the logo, although bear in mind that the logo font(s) don't necessarily dictate the body copy and headline fonts. In general though, whatever is chosen should blend well with the logo.

Many companies (at least the ones that paid for it) have graphic standards, which dictate which fonts are to be used in all materials. They don't just pick fonts willy nilly out of a hat (at least the larger ones don't) for every ad or collateral piece they produce, as it would diverge from their brand identity.

[urstwile]

No, I wouldn't say everything needs to be in the same fonts as the logo, as long as what you choose is in harmony with the logo.

For example, one of our larger clients has a font in their logo, but we don't use that font in headlines. They have graphic standards set up for headlines and body copy that are in different fonts from the logo, but they all work together, and are used consistently.

Except by their internal creative department, LOL.

But all of the ads and collateral we do for them adheres to these standards across the board.

Maybe it should be your challenge to wow the Creative Director with some ideas for graphic identity.

[Mynock]

I wish our owner would pony up so I could have those actual fonts, but it his case I don't see why he would. He only has two designers and in the cheapo fonts you have them all - well sort of. Color graphics is only the side business as we make the large majority on our reprographics.

[RedRyder]

Apart from the 'core' fonts used by probably most people, I have used Zekton for display recently with some success.

Edit I posted this here in error. It's now been housed correctly in another thread. Apologies.

[CamarotaDesign]

Avante Garde
Gill Sans
Futura
Swiss 911 Extra Compressed
Eurostile
Frutiger

Been enjoying Agency lately.

Garamond
Clarendon
Cheltenham

I've pretty much overdosed on Futura.

[Virgo Nightingale]

Some of my past font choices and/or combos...

Clarendon
Optima/Sabon
Tiepolo (on some one word notecards)
Helvetica Neue Bold Condensed/Garmond
Mona Lisa/Stuyvesant/Nuptial Script (for a series of New Year's cards - on separate cards, not all together, silly)

I can't think of anything else right now. Most of what worked on recently has been for clients with fairly established identities, so I haven't really been chosing new fonts. Perhaps I'll think of more tomorrow...

[emmerse]

Just recently found the wonderful world of Helvetica Neue

Century Gothic
GM Sans
Optima

Palatino
Georgia
Garamond

At my last job I used Impact 80% of the time and got sick of it. It's actually a pretty versitile font when used creatively.

My AD uses Arial Black/Bold like its going out of style. Seriously drives me nuts at times.

[Ens]

My fallback fonts are:

Trade Gothic
Mrs Eaves
Berthold Grotesk
Frutiger
Eurostile
FF Din
P22 Underground
Sabon
Optima (The sans-serif with serifs)
Reliq (I like the natural feel that it gives, works great for organic food packaging)

[Samakimoto Graphics]

I have found that Futura family (especially Futura Lt BT*) work very well for publications with lots of body text upto about 6 points and up.