Good Reading Fonts

[Eraser Nubbin]

What do you say?
Curious to know what others think. Putting together a book on traditional Inuit plant usage. More concerned about legibility then it having a traditional look.

[Eraser Nubbin]

I know, I am boring, but I am leaning towards plain old Garamond.

[morea]

I like Goudy, I just used that for a theater program.
Stone Serif is another good one.

[frishka]

Ditto on Stone Serif. I also like Veljovic and Warnock.

[garricks]

When I have a choice I use Adobe Caslon Pro 10/12. Another designer I know defaults to Palatino.

[urstwile]

I've been flirting with a couple of the ones that come along with the Adobe Creative suite, Adobe Jenson Pro and also Warnock Pro. I agree with the choices above as well. I've also found Berkeley Oldstyle to be great for readability.

[garricks]

urstwile, I looked on my CS2 Premium and CS3 Design premium discs and can't find Warnock Pro. Do you remember when/what/which installed it?

I also like Berkeley Oldstyle.

[urstwile]

It's part of CS2, the standard install. I'm pretty sure I didn't do anything special to have them install.

[garricks]

Thanks! For a minute I thought I'd have to dig the old G4 out and fire it up, but then I remembered I have CS2 installed on my laptop! Woo Hoo! I didn't migrate CS2 when I got my MacPro, I did a fresh install of CS3.

[urstwile]

Have fun! :)

[Drazan]

I just had a discussion yesterday with my coworker whether to change our new catalog font from Warnock to Berkley or basketville. We decided to stay with Warnock Pro.

Jade

[Bowfinpw]

I hear what you're saying about familiar fonts, like Garamond, but there is a reason that Garamond, Caslon, Bembo, Janson and Baskerville have been used for hundreds of years -- people can read them. Maybe they are safe choices, but they will always work. A good way to judge what you might want is to go around picking up books and seeing what type they use, especially when you think it looks easy to read.
There are many good twentieth century typefaces as well: Centaur, Electra, Fairfield, Galliard, Perpetua, Berkeley O.S., Berling, Giovanni and Palatino are just a few.
The newer ones you have been mentioning are fine too. Font Bureau, Hoefler and Adobe have all made many solid useful new text families. It's almost hard to go wrong -- just find one you like and go with it.

[Eraser Nubbin]

Thanks so much guys.
Warnock and Caslon were two that I was mulling over as well.
I assume that serif text is standard for a book?

The reason I ask is that our training was pretty technical. Some books I read seem to undermine each other.

Like for instance I read a book by Ogilvy that said research had proven that large bodies of text were often read in magazines and that windows and orphans did not break up the flow of reading. The same book also mentioned that the value of TV advertising was still up in the air as it was such a new media at the time ;)

[TeeJay!]

I think Comic Sans is a great reading font

Not.

[Eraser Nubbin]

This link is pretty rudimentary, but I found it helpful:
http://www.artbookbindery.com/layout.htm

[GraphixNPrint]

I think Comic Sans is a great reading font

Not.
Who gets the pleasure of Tar and Feathering the newbie?? ;)

[budafist]

Ooh Ooh can it be me!?

I don't have any feathers handy though. Can I used this bag of dried chili flakes instead?

[GraphixNPrint]

Chili flakes will work in a pinch!

[budafist]

Just no eye rubbing. Actually rubbing any delicate areas should be avoided. Oh wait, the tar should work as a good barrier.