One way to get around racking your brain is by picking typefaces from the same designer can help. Its the easiest way for me.

Also from the same period/style/source can help but that's not a guarantee. For example Mantinia and Galliard go very well... by the same author.

Mikey :0)

Here is another way... find printed literature- magazines, books, manuals, etc. and see how others combine different type. I keep a note pad at all times with me when I'm out and about.

Soaking yourself into issues of How, STEP & Print will have raring to go.

The Font Shop virtual newletters combine type nicely too.

http://www.fontshop.com/fontfeed/

browse all the past months with the pull down menu at the right

Mike Diaz :-)

The best advice, in my opinion, it that of SUF, which is to say, find examples you like. Take them apart and see how they work. For instance, if you think Frutiger is a perfect marriage for Caslon, then you know you can always invite them together to the party. But try to understand for yourself WHY you think they belong together, and you can apply this to other faces.

I would avoid any advice that says,"This face and that must never be used together," or "These two faces are perfect together," or even "Just combine faces by that designer."
Designing with type has to be a reflection of your own tastes, not prescribed rules.

This question often arises and I hope I don't sound like a robot as my answer is always the same: don't worry so match about compatible typefaces. Nearly any two types can work together. Pick typefaces that fit your subject and audience. If they are right for the project, they are right for each other.

An exception: when using two distinct typefaces within a single line or paragraph, try to match general proportions (asc/descender length and x-height). Or, pick a font suite.

If you're creating the impression of simultaneous conversations, then I would suggest choosing faces that represent, at least in your own mind, the different characters of the quadralogue.

kostal: certainly. I wasn't saying that no training or understanding of type is necessary. I guess I was suggesting to get the training and the understanding and then let your own vision be the guide. So often, "Never" and "Always" guides are offered as help, when I think that kind of view can be detrimental to good design.

A few "rules" of things not to do.

a) don't choose faces that are "too similar" like Helvetica and Univers, for instance.

b) don't choose faces that are "too different" like a very fine body text (sans) with a super heavy fatface heading -- basically, you don't want the fonts to fight each other. Different slants on the italics can also do this, if there will be a lot of italics happening.

c) Don't mix your focus ... using a grunge heading with a formal script body, for instance. (Unless this is the statement you are trying to make)

Set your samples with the options you like ... then put them away for 48 hours. Come back to them and the bad ones will probably stand out and say "Ick".

Some types which don't seem to work together at similar sizes may work fine when one is much larger than the other.

ChrisL

"Some types which don’t seem to work together at similar sizes may work fine when one is much larger than the other."

Yes. Often, you will be able to nudge one font up or down several points in size to compensate for different apparent sizes or x-heights/body sizes.

You can also find surprising compatibilities between otherwise dissimilar types. For example, Joanna (a neohumanist slab-serifed font) looks beautiful when set with Fournier Italic (a neoclassical/transitional font). And the expressionist Post Mediaeval Italic makes a nice companion for Marathon, a more geometrically structured expressionist roman. And Centaur Roman (or Jenson) works beautifully with the blackletter San Marco used as a contrasting type for emphasis. The pen script El Greco, with adjustments made for size, makes an interesting italic companion for Raleigh, and so forth.

Experiment and try new and unexpected combinations, but do it as knowledgeably as you can for the best results.

David Thometz

Nice mixes, made nicer still since we can know and see WHY they were chosen, and WHY they work so well together. It wasn't an arbitrary process, or a case of, "Ah -- these look okay together." That's what non-designers do.

David Thometz

Picking agreeable typefaces isn't all that different from choosing wines -- there are some basic rules ("red with beef, white with everything else" and "pick a simpler meal with a complex wine, and vice versa") and the experience to know when you should just pick what you like and tinker a little with each. ;-)

Another good technique, if you want to get your eyes dirty, is to pair typefaces side by side using:

Gabocse escobaG

(Trade Gothic with Filosofia and Gotham with Didot)

You can get a good sense for how letters look side by side and how the x-heights, widths, etc. match up.

SCHOOL PROJECT SELL ATYPEFACE AND TELL THE BLA BLA BLA ABOUT IT THE ONLY THING i CAN'T GET ANSWERED FOR MY DESIGN PROJECT IS WHAT OTHER TYPEFACES OR FONTS IT WORKS WITH EXAMPLE IS IT GOOD WITH TAHOMA OR ARIEL i WANTED TO USE ADOBE PRO GARAMOND PUT i CANT FIND WHAT WORKS WITH IT . oh caps sorry= and by the way i can't find the page it was on dut some one wanted the adobe pro garamond for free and you guys jumped on him ! I got it for free on a frre fonts site. Two shool students only want them so they can fininsh projects and are not making a profit and thrree My teacher gave us a project with the optio n of only six type familiys which he had to assume we as non profesionals would have on our computers -I had only two of them and one of them I got from the free down load so i would of been stuck with one font choice which i think i used any ways arieal was boring font. I had helvetica on my computer at my old job I do not know how it got on ther but it is not on my home computer nor optima, and many other that many seem to have and i don't have a bunch of money to buy bunch of fonts . its not stealing when you are not making money of it or are you going to tell me you never lent a book to a friend or gave it to them when you were done or a music cd so they could listen to it or how about a food reciepe that you liked and gave some one -did you make that person go out and by the book or did you write down the recipe. I hope whoever was asking for that font sees this so he knows he has someone on his side the professionals that are making big bucks should willing pay for non free fonts because they can afford it and are using profesional sets. but let us minors learn some stuff withuot giong broke trying to go to school and are laid off and can barely feed ourselfs. get of your fracking high horses. I bet you guys down loaded (which I did not) all that free music when you could before they changed the law Oh but thatwas just file sharing..

Rene's post reminds me of this. (Shame I can't find the typical image that would go with it.)

Ever since I chose to block pop-ups, my toaster's stopped working.

this is surely old news to the vets here but for those who need help:

the font finder on linotype looks like a great resource and tool.

i particularly liked the find fonts by inspiration, and the form finder seems like the perfect thing to help you (but obviously they're not going to be showing fonts from other foundries, and i wish you could narrow the search more by things for text, display, and exclude certain things, like italics)

Agree with Stephen Coles about not worrying about matching type, to a point. Experiment, yes, but really look at the results. Are they to your liking - or not?
We get paid to have opinions.

pbc

There was a time when I would have called Belwe ugly too -- back when it was so overused as to make a designer cringe at the very sight of it. But now I see it as it is -- a very late Arts-&-Crafts-era (1926) type that was designed as a creative interpretation of Jenson, and revived in the 1970s when such styles were popular again. As such, it can be a useful choice for period work.

It may not be fashionable right now, but I wouldn't call it ugly, any more than I would call other Arts & Crafts or Art Nouveau styles ugly. It's all in how they're used in a design.

Believe it or not, young designers, there will come a time when many of today's stylish types will be derided by a new generation. :)

Having said that, however, I wouldn't have thought of pairing Belwe with Helvetica. The two have some definite structural incompatibilities, although the x-heights and proportions work together better than I would have guessed.

Instead of the Swiss neo-grotesque Helvetica, I might look to other Arts-&-Crafts-era grotesques, such as Monotype Grotesque, Venus, AG Old Face, or Akzidenz Grotesk. Or, since Belwe has a relatively open, somewhat geometric structure, look to other geometric sanserifs like Kabel or even Peter Bruhn's Mercury to pair with with Belwe (those stylized lower-case "g"s look like they were made for each other). Barmeno, Legacy Sans or other Jenson-derived sanserifs might be other options.

David Thometz

Doug, your recommendations in "19 top fonts" are safe, easy and boring.
The typefaces you recommend were almost all designed long ago, (none this century) and are published by corporations.

I declare my bias: I am alive, design original typefaces, and own the foundry that publishes them.

Get with the tour!

Just out of curiosity; what about typefaces that are not the same, but have the same ancestors?

Like:
- Sabon (Body) and Garamond Premiere Pro (Display/Headline)
- Baskerville (Body) and Mrs. Eaves (Display/Headline)