Your favourite FontFont (FF) fonts.

Palatine
26.Sep.2005 2.06pm
Palatine's picture

Name your favourite FontFonts, such as Celeste, Avance, Quadraat, etc. If you don't mind, please state your reasons.

Just a fun thread. Also helps steer people in the direction of quality fonts.

Mine -and some others'- are here:
http://typographi.com/000969.php

hhp


Kievit and Seria. I just find myself so drawn to the proportions of Kievit. I really like the long ascenders of Seria.


My current top five FontFonts:

FF Bau (goodbye Helv and AkzGrot)
FF Quadraat (Serif, Sans, and Headliner are all unmatched)
FF Strada (warm sans)
FF Daxline (the ultimate modern sans, fixes all my issues with the ultra-popular FF Dax)
FF Moderne Gothics (Jim Parkinson's finest period display faces)


I do like Quadraat. Top of my font shopping list. Wasn't that one made by the same gentleman who made Trinite (TEFF)?


I am a fan of both type designers Paul Renner & Eric Gill. My favorite fonts 'right now' are...

FUTURA
GILL SANS
PERPETUA (especially italic)

~ Rusty


I recently set a book of essays using Bau Bold (titles), Clifford (body) and Profile (intros). They hung together remarkably well.


FF Quadraat was done by Fred Smeijers (and is my fav)
Trinité was done by Bram de Does (for TEFF, not FF) and digitized by PP Noordzij.

O — Rusty: the question was 'favorite FontFonts', and your list is def. NOT FF ; )


FF Maiola designed by Veronika Burian.


I think the widely used FF Scala and FF Meta--two early faces from FontFont--are both superb faces, deserving their popularity.


Yes! Long live Scala (and Scala Sans). I dig on their extensive families and design characteristics.


I only like Scala when it is printed lo-res or letterpress. It is overly perfect. The same can be said of Lanston's Albertan. Both very beautiful, but both too crisp.


I have seen Scala looking good in a book--not too thin--but I don't know the process. Apparently there can be significant differences in gain when going to film to plate--and that can vary in how it is done--or direct to plate. I don't yet comprehend these important matters of production, though I would like to.


I really like Thesis (The Sans, The Serif, The Mix).


I really like Thesis (The Sans, The Serif, The Mix).

The Thesis family no longer belongs to the FontFont collection.


It did once. Not for a few years.


bert:

Thanks for clarifying. I knew that Quadraat had some sort of Dutch connection. I mixed up the foundries, thinking of TEFF instead of DTL.

It seems the Dutch have alot to say when it comes to excellence in type.


Oh I see it's Lucas Fonts now.

it was FF when I got it.


I'm a big fan of FF Zwo and FF Info Display. FF Unit is also nice.


Clifford. Nice and definite. I love the size variations, and the good strong colour. I only wish there was a display cut.


There are quite a few that I like, but the first that inevitably springs to mind is Silvio Napoleone's FF Hydra. I just love the "overexposed" quality of the ink trap-like details (being a kid of the nineties, please forgive me my infatuation with Barry Deck and the people he influenced). I like my type special, but subtly so.

As far as the recent batch* goes, I agree with Tiff that FF Maiola is stunning. I'm usually not so hot for sharp faces, but this one's so good it makes me wanna cry.

* Look for my review of the latest FontFont release in the next installment of Bald Condensed. Expect it online within a week.


Perhaps it's out of style now -- or overused -- but I really like the Meta and MetaPlus families.


For clarity's sake, "MetaPlus" is Meta's old name. For the last several years it's been known simply as FF Meta. And it's certainly not out of style, especially with the new Hairline and Headline cuts.

The most modern browser used Meta for its branding and didn't come off out of date.


Keeping track of FF Meta

Originally, back in 1991 when the very first batch of FontFonts was released, there was FF Meta 1 (Normal, Bold, Small Caps). Hanging figures and additional ff-ligatures were already present in the Normal and Bold weights, with lining figures in the Small Caps.

The first expansion came in 1992 with FF Meta 2 {Italic, Italic Small Caps, Bold Small Caps}.

FF MetaPlus, released in 1993, was the big leap forward. Apart from tripling the total number of fonts to 18, it included a fine-tuning of some characters (most notably the correction of the crossbar on the lc 't'). The family at that point featured Normal, Book, Medium, Bold and Black weights, all in Roman, Italic, Small Caps and Italic Small Caps (except for the Black weight which didn't include Small Caps). Still hanging figures in the 'normal' weights and lining figures in the Small Caps.

Eventually, in 1998 it was back to FF Meta, which saw a reorganisation of the family into subfamilies: FF MetaNormal, FF MetaBook, FF MetaMedium, FF MetaBold and FF MetaBlack, all in Roman, Italic, Small Caps and Italic Small Caps, which all got coupled with their respective Expert and Lining Figures weights: yep, 60 fonts indeed. Biggest change this time was the addition of the Black Small Caps, and moving the extra ligatures (ff, ffi, ffl which were previously in the regular fonts) to the new Expert fonts. And of course the Lining figures weights which means you don't have to switch weights anymore to get the desired type of numerals.

Since then, the family was expanded to include foreign language sets, additional weights, and Condensed and Headline variations.

So, to conclude: don't mix the original six weight FF Meta with FF MetaPlus nor the new FF Meta family (different spacing, some redesigned characters), and when substituting FF Meta for FF MetaPlus be careful with disappearing ff-ligatures and different types of numerals.

This is a reprise of a 2 year old post which appears to have disappeared in digital limbo. Thought it might clear up any misunderstandings about FF Meta and FF MetaPlus.


eureka and eureka sans
info


I also like Seria for its tall ascenders.

I still like Disturbance, but mostly because of its use in the title for The Butterfly Effect, where they horizontally flipped the first 'f' in Effect. Thought that was a nice... effect. I see that they've dropped it though, well at least the official site has.

I also still like using Din. Actually, is someone able to expand on Din and all its variants from different houses? Can you tell me which came first, and how they differ from each other?


FontFont has a lot of classics... FF Absara is one I'm fond of at the moment. It's a serif that is particularly elegant. I especially like the tapered y and k, etc. The matching sans is also nice.


I like FF Zwo most. One of the underappreciated big sanserifs, so much better than some stuff that has been receiving major coverage in the past years.

Adam


Working a lot with FF Legato recently, bought the whole hullaballoo.
Intriguing. So, i go for FF Legato, Evert R.I.P.

ƒ


I've only worked with Absara, but pretty much all of Dupré's work gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling. And a desire for more disposable income.