Comments on: Best font for my book?

Question: Best font for my book?

tenseone — Sun, 06 Jun 2004 18:25:28 -0800

Whilst whittling away on a book within the confines of InDesign, I've come upon a question which is purely subjective in nature: If I wish to present this tome in as nice a fashion as possible, which font should I set the text in? I am looking for a beautiful serif, one which harkens back to the Victorian era, yet is easily readable in a smallish size (12pt).

In other words, friends, what is your favorite serif font?

(I have most major foundries in my collection: Emigre, Font Bureau, Adobe, P22...)

By: Aaorn

Aaorn — Sun, 06 Jun 2004 18:36:10 -0800

Bembo really hoists my flag. The rest of the choices in that series are worth consideration too.

By: amberglow

amberglow — Sun, 06 Jun 2004 18:52:32 -0800

Palatino, Minion, Bauer Bodoni, Agfa Rotis Serif

By: tenseone

tenseone — Sun, 06 Jun 2004 18:57:46 -0800

Both Bembo and Bauer Bodoni appear quite lovely during trial.

I truly appreciate the assistance, my eyes were beginning to bleed whilst scrolling through Suitcase.

By: MegoSteve

MegoSteve — Sun, 06 Jun 2004 19:02:07 -0800

Garamond.

By: signal

signal — Sun, 06 Jun 2004 19:34:48 -0800

If you want to give your type that olde feeling, look for one with an "Expert" version, with fancy ligatures and kerning (ff, fi, fl, etc.) , for instance Adobe Garamond.

By: signal

signal — Sun, 06 Jun 2004 19:40:08 -0800

And Aaorn's link goes a long way toward answering the original question.

By: jmgorman

jmgorman — Sun, 06 Jun 2004 20:46:59 -0800

ooh, bembo is my new fav. v nice aaorn

By: bonaldi

bonaldi — Sun, 06 Jun 2004 20:52:08 -0800

Cochin is a beauty, but usually not good for working with on screen.

Utopia is nice at smaller sizes (8pt)

Goudy old style has the feel you're looking for at 12pt (which is fairly large, by the way, not smallish)

Minion is killer too.

By: misteraitch

misteraitch — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 03:22:42 -0800

Victorian-era typography was often quite unbeautiful, or at least it is unfashionable and not much loved today. Personally I'd go back a bit further in time with a solid but elegant Baskerville.

By: hijinx

hijinx — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 06:22:57 -0800

I absolutely love Hoefler Text.

By: tenseone

tenseone — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 06:40:25 -0800

Thank you all ever so much, this is turning out to be much more fun than I had imagined.

Goudy old style has the feel you're looking for at 12pt (which is fairly large, by the way, not smallish)

I suppose it is obvious I have no idea what I am doing. This is my first foray into book-making, and I am beginning small: each book will be 4 1/2 inches by 3 1/4. I suppose I will need to print a few pages and see exactly how tiny I need to set the text.

Ligatures are a must as I have come to realize while reading through the comments, and I jump for joy at having them brought to my attention.

Thank you all, again.

By: luriete

luriete — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 09:13:02 -0800

If you use a Garamond, stay away from the earlier digitized versions and stick with Adobe's. In fact, their new Opentype pro version plays very well with Indesign and its fantastic typography-handling tools.

Fontshop's Clifford is beautiful, pleasant and friendly and has great color; I'm partial to Adobe's wonderful new opentype pro version of Caslon, as well, which has fantastically complete alternate/expert sets.

Emigre's new Tribute is also gorgeous. I haven't worked with it yet, but may purchase it soon - I certainly would like to use it for some longer settings.

By: jpoulos

jpoulos — Mon, 07 Jun 2004 09:30:07 -0800

I've got a Garamond fetish.