BODY COPY
SAN SERIF For my go to fonts for body copy I tend to prefer fonts that come in a lot of weights for versatility. Some would say Helvetica is overused, and that’s probably true. Others would say the reason it’s #1 is because it is a good font. It gets a lot of love and a lot of hate. As for where I stand, Helvetica Neue (the 1980s Linotype revamp which fixed many issues of alignment and consistency from the original Helvetica family) is my go to san serif font. It tends to work on most projects, and the weights range from Ultra Light to Heavy, and from Condensed to Extended.
I had a typography teacher once tell me something along the lines of ‘a good designer uses very few font families but learns to use them well’. I didn’t exactly take that and run with it, but despite the fact that I probably have more fonts on my computer than anybody else in the office I tend to leave the fun fonts for logos and headlines and stick to certain fonts for body copy.
Other great alternatives
Univers : I use to prefer Univers at one time, but have since converted to Helvetica Neue. But it’s still a great font that has many weights as well, and a bit more personality as the strokes are not entirely monotone in weight.
Frutiger: Univers and Frutiger were developed by typographer Adrian Frutiger. In many ways I actually prefer Frutiger to either Univers or Helvetica. “Frutiger's goal was to create a sans serif typeface with the rationality and cleanliness of Univers, but with the organic and proportional aspects of Gill Sans. The result is that Frutiger is a distinctive and legible typeface.”
SERIF There are so many versions of Garamond it gets confusing, so to be specific my go to serif font family is Adobe Garamond Pro a revival based on Claude Garamond’s original typeface. The Adobe Garamond family is extensive, and includes great additions such as Old Style Figures & Small Caps & beautiful Alternate Characters. Other great alternatives: Bembo, Minion, Palatino.
HEADLINE
These days there are a variety of fun fonts that work well for display type that can work depending on the situation. But there are some classics you can always fall back on for display and headline type that always look timeless. Any of the body copy fonts above will work, as they come from font families with extensive variations.
A good headline font is Trade Gothic in its condensed weights, which looks great in advertisements. Another is Futura, which is probably the most common geometric san serif, designed by Paul Renner who based them loosely on the simple forms of circle, triangle and square. It’s great for headlines, and despite being debuted in 1928 it’s a font that always gives a modern feel to designs, which is why I like it. Some tend to consider Futura on the cold side, and Avenir is a great alternative which is not purely geometric or monotone. Another is Avant Garde, which is a geometrical san serif much like Futura (it also has some fun alternative characters). Its letterforms are built of circles and clean lines and highly effective for headlines and short texts. Where have you seen it? The logo for adidas.
In terms of a slab serif font for headlines Luablin Graph or Rockwell are my go to fonts.
Other great alternative headline fonts: Franklin Gothic, DIN, Didot, Clarendon.
Trade Gothic
