Jan 18
C’est fontastic!
2005 at 03.55 am posted by Veerle Pieters
Selecting the right font is a job on itself within the process of a project. For me, together with color it’s one of the most important parts of a design. Sometimes, or maybe more then often, we work on projects where we don’t have to choose this, because we need to follow housestyle guidelines. When defining a housestyle is part of the job, then selecting the right fonts is one of the things I start with. Even when I design a logo, finding the suitable font is almost the first step.
And you know, this is always a fun part. We have this big folder with printouts of all the fonts and I love browsing it. All the choice makes choosing rather difficult, but while browsing ideas popup. A font sets a style, a font gives a design an extra accent.
A lot of fonts have a certain neutral timeless look and can be used for many purposes. A new recent discovered favorite of mine is Monitor designed by Fred Smeijers and distributed by OurType. Other favorites are Frutiger or DIN.
Others have a look that only is suited for certain purposes or themes. Some examples we've created for The Library of Congress (for The Learning Page):
One thing I've noticed is that many ad agencies that have a show reel on their site use an MTV-ish style that reflects the seventies. Not all of them of course, but certainly a large percentage. Graphic design follows the trends of fashion. And the seventies style has been around for a while now. Fonts like Helvetica Rounded Black or Cooper Black are typical for that period and are fonts that I used at school years ago, it's like they've revived again.
And you could even link it to the disco style. Instead of talking about it I visualized it for you, by way of something I created and a QuickTime movie from The Brain Box:
- Watch this movie
- View my creation
It's almost like these fonts have a personality of their own. As soon as such kind of a font is used in a design, the style is set, take it away and the design is not the same. But don't get me wrong, the font has a big influence on the total design alright, but it is one of the many things that makes a design good or bad. See it as one of the ingredients of a cocktail, the cocktail being your design. Using the right ingredients in the right amount gives you the perfect cocktail, a well-balanced design. To stay with the metaphor of alcohol, too much is overkill.
25served
1
I’ll have to second your choice concerning Frutiger! Is my prefered font too!
2
Frutiger and the likes are definitely my favourites. Thanks for inspiring me to start work on That Other Looming Project (yes, I always have something to do).
3
I’m from Germany and we have another font style thing on its way to the top.
I think it was one of our majour TV stations (Pro 7) that launched the new slogan “we love” and popularized a certain type of font. I don’t know how it’s called, so please check it out: WE LOVE.DE. Remarkable are the lines through the letters.
Since then I saw this type of font at many other places. It seems to be a favourit for musicians, like Rammstein or Nu Pagadi (our latest casted band).
The original use is quite nice, but I fell a little jaded by such an abusive amount of this type.
4
Fonts are flavor. *nods*
5
@Simon, I think Rammstein uses AG Book Stencil. But the font used by the TV station… not sure about this one, it looks slightly different. Maybe it’s HouseBroken (from House Industries, but I don’t find it on their website). After some Googl’ing I found this list of fonts.
6
Hm, yes, you’re right.
These stencil variants are all around. Thanks for searching!
7
My favorite 70s font is Tiki Magic
8
I apologize for that posting that may be deemed slightly off-topic.
9
@Kevin, not at all it’s interesting to know what others like, but a link to view to font is always it. Isn’t Google handy! :-)
@karel and Rob, what can I say you both have a good taste :-D
10
Too bad most fonts are expensive, so somebody should come up with an iTunes for fonts. That would be cool!
11
I use this site a lot to get free fonts (small fee usually required for commercial use). It’s not too shabby though:
Font Freak
12
I can’t get enough of this style. Whenever anybody uses it, I’m in total awe, but I can never quite get it myself. I try so hard! A couple of my designs have used Cooper Black though, but not quite like that.
13
I usually use dafont.com to find free fonts. The fonts are well categorized and it’s quite easy to get what you need but of course it’s just free fonts (maybe not the quality of professional fonts but for me, it is usually enough… I’m not a professionnal graphical designer too ;-) )
14
Some fonts let your inpiration go faster. I like your creation specially some little detail (like the shadow of the dancing flower.) :)
15
Hoi Veerle, ik wou je vragen of ik die afbeelding van “disco Veerle” mag gebruiken om een nieuw ontwerp te maken voor mijn project “Gigastyle.be” ?
16
@Mark Creeten: Bedankt om het me eerlijk te vragen maar ik zou toch liever hebben dat je het beeld niet gebruikt. Het is behoorlijk eenvoudig om zoiets zelf te maken. Trouwens iets dat jezelf gemaakt hebt heeft net dat ietsje meer toch?
17
@Veerle, okee geen probleem, had er nadien ook al aan gedacht. Bedankt
18
Hi Veerle,
Love your site very much!
But what do you mean with “printouts of all the fonts”? Is it on paper/pdf/jpg or something else?
Greetz
Sara
Ps. Als je ooit een vacature hebt bij duoh! :)
Ik ben trouwens erg nieuwsgierig naar jouw
opleiding, vorige werkervaring, ervaringen als zelfstandige,...
19
@Sara, I mean on paper. We have made prints of all the fonts we have. Sorry I haven’t a ‘about’ page, I will in the next version of my blog. FYI, my personal info is stored in the ‘members’ section of my blog (but only members can access this).
20
I currently enjoy DIN very much and I occasionally use FreyTag , altough that font only has one weight.
When visiting clients (which are almost all ad agencies), I sometimes shiver to see that they stick with the tested and approved fonts (something even helvetica).
Veerle, I saw you mention monitor. Is that related to Monitor unlimited , the magazine? Cause I kinda fancy that type they use for the title of the magazine (I think it’s custom made).
21
Hum, funny thing in my previous post. Links work, but I don’t see them underlined. And you require 650 seconds between posts. That’s like, almost 11 minutes. Okay i’ll leave the window open for that long…
... and… eleven! :-)
22
@noah, if the links are visited links then the underlining disappears ;-) The long interval is to prevent spam… It didn’t help by setting it to 5 minutes or so. No Monitor has nothing to do with the magazine. I can’t give the direct URL since the site is made in Flash but it if you surf to Our Type, you’ll see the font listed on the left. BTW, the font of the magazine you’re suggesting is also a nice one.
23
Yeah, I know. I like clean, sharp, no frills fonts. Just as like clean and sharp design (like you did on the Accept website, if I remember well).
24
@noah, www.accept.be is indeed a site we (mainly I) developed including a new logo. It’s a few years old already but still looking good if I may say so.
25
Hey Veerle, love your blog… I’m curious what font you have on your logo