Matt McInerney

I have a few pet peeves. Sometimes I try to keep them to myself, but this is one that I feel needs to be aired. And maybe if I post it for everyone to see, I can prevent a future type crime. Even if I can just stop one person from using a terrible typeface, it’s worth a post. I’ll start with a quote:

We believe there are not that many good typefaces. If I want to be really generous, there’s a dozen.

That’s from famous graphic designer, Massimo Vignelli. He’s responsible for the New York Subway maps and American Airlines’ identity. While I don’t agree that there are only a dozen good typefaces, I agree with the sentiment. There are a lot of bad typefaces and fonts out there. Your job as a designer/typographer is to attempt to avoid them. But where does one look for the well designed typefaces? Perhaps I can help. Below is a list of 30 Serif and Sans-Serif typefaces. All are well designed professional typefaces that you can use in your future graphic design work.

Sans Serif

• Agenda
• Akzidenz Grotesk
• Avenir
• DIN
• Eurostile
• Franklin Gothic
• Frutiger
• Futura
• Gill Sans
• Gotham
• Helvetica
• Interstate
• Meta
• News Gothic
• Officina Sans
• Trade Gothic
• Univers

Serif

• Archer
• Baskerville
• Bembo
• Big Caslon
• Bodoni
• Clarendon
• Didot
• Garamond
• Jenson
• Minion
• Officina Serif
• Sabon
• Scala

There are a few typefaces I left out. Arial is first on the list that I would never include. The only reason Arial exists: Microsoft was too cheap to pay Linotype the licensing fee for Helvetica. Instead, they opted to hire Monotype to recreate Helvetica, using all the same letter widths. Monotype redesigned by dropping the 90 degree terminal rule of Helvetica, dropping some strokes, like on the capital G, and redesigning the beautiful capital R of Helvetica. The only reason Arial is still in use: Helvetica still isn’t included on Microsoft operating systems. If you’re ever looking for an alternative to Helvetica, look to Univers, designed by Adrian Frutiger.
Some others: Georgia, Verdana, Trebuchet. These were all designed by Matthew Carter specifically for use on the screen. They are beautifully designed and work great on web pages and in applications, but I wouldn’t want to suggest them on a list of typefaces intended for all around use. They would appear on my top screen font list though.
Finally: Myriad. There are two reason. First, Myriad is almost exactly the same as Frutiger, the major difference is that Myriad’s lowercase i dot is rounded. Second, Apple pretty much monopolizes Myriad use. If you’re creating a mac app and you really want that Apple look, go for it, but otherwise, just use Frutiger.

Why no hand drawn fonts? I’ve always found that if you want that hand drawn look, just do it by hand. The difference between typefaces and handwrting are the slight differences between letters in handwriting. In handwritten fonts, you lose that quality. That’s why I try not to use handwritten fonts if at all possible.

If you’ve ever been in question on typeface selection, hopefully this will be a step in the right direction. Avoid bad free fonts. Look at picking up some of these beautiful professional typefaces.