Font Preview Software for Logotypes

April 19, 2007 11:24 AM

Mac/DesignFilter: I once heard of a Mac program that would allow you to preview different fonts using specific text, to help ease the design of a logotype. This isn't a font manager, but more of a design tool.

I want to be able to take a company name (e.g. "YourCompany") and have it typeset in 20 different fonts for me to look at and/or print out.

I know there are similar functions in Suitcase, but I want to be able to create a sheet with only "YourCompany" whereas Suitcase will print a whole type spec sheet.

posted by lunarboy to computers & internet (8 comments total)

dafont.com is a pretty bitchin' site.
posted by phaedon at 11:35 AM on April 19, 2007

You could use Font Book, which is part of OS X (Applications/Font Book.app) if you just want to view onscreen.

Launch Font Book, you'll get a three-pane window. Select any of the font names in the center pane. The entire font set will display in the far right pane. Go to menubar: Preview : Custom, click anywhere in the far right pane and type in YourCompany. Now, any font name you click in the center pane will display YourCompany.

If you'd like, you can click the + button under the far left pane and name it something relevant to your project (e.g. YourCompany logo) and drag/drop the fonts which look the best over there as you narrow down your selection.

I'm not aware of a way to use Font Book to print out multiple font samples on one sheet of paper, however.
posted by jamaro at 11:46 AM on April 19, 2007

Suitcase Fusion does, in fact, allow this.
posted by miss tea at 12:48 PM on April 19, 2007

The free FontExplorerX does the preview part; not sure about exporting/printing a list of previews, though.
posted by Hankins at 1:29 PM on April 19, 2007

FontLister does this (you can edit the text) for Windows. I know you said Mac, but this is so ridiculously close that it might be useful.
posted by niles at 4:29 PM on April 19, 2007

myfonts.com does it too.
posted by nadise at 7:09 PM on April 19, 2007

If you're running Tiger, TypeCast is a handy widget for previewing fonts.
posted by al_fresco at 7:55 AM on April 20, 2007

Sorry, didn't read the [more inside].
posted by al_fresco at 7:56 AM on April 20, 2007