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The best Arial / Times / Courier for print?
Posted by eastonwest in
27 Aug 2009 — 9:53am
27 Aug 2009 — 9:53am
Any suggestions as to what would be the best version of Arial, Times New Roman and Courier New for print. High quality offset/un-coated paper/2&4 color. Extended texts and poetry for content. Danke!
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27 Aug 2009 — 9:59am
You might want to consider non-bundled fonts. Arial, TNR and Courier have their place - Poetry isn't it.
27 Aug 2009 — 11:10am
Can you explain why these typefaces were chosen for your project? I am almost sure we can offer you more appropriate alternatives.
27 Aug 2009 — 1:49pm
Looks like Verdana and Ikea were not good enough example of bad type choice.
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Sandro
27 Aug 2009 — 4:50pm
sii: I am trying to use non-bundled fonts. That's why I posed the question in the first place. If you think those choices are nuts, you should read the poetry I'm working with.
Stephen Coles: I'm trying to do good with bad (maybe ubiquitous is a better word?).
I don't have the time, nor the license, to open these typefaces up in FontLab and reconstruct them how I see fit (not to mention I am not a type designer). I can easily go and pick up my copy of Elements…, re-read the Crystal Goblet or thumb through Frutiger's Caracteres if I wanted to use other typefaces.
But I just want a simple answer. Is that so wrong? If there isn't more refined versions of these typefaces available, then just say so.
ravel: You didn't even offer any assistance at all. What gives?
27 Aug 2009 — 9:18pm
>But I just want a simple answer. Is that so wrong?
Yes, it's wrong because there isn't a simple answer.
All of those will print clearly in offset. Beyond that answer, it's a matter of suiting the type to the project and the design for the project. There are a million + ways to go, and as Stephen said, for that people would need to know more about the project and the design ideas.
28 Aug 2009 — 3:10am
I don’t have the time, nor the license, to open these typefaces up in FontLab and reconstruct them how I see fit (not to mention I am not a type designer). I can easily go and pick up my copy of Elements…, re-read the Crystal Goblet or thumb through Frutiger’s Caracteres if I wanted to use other typefaces.
How do you mean to reconstruct those typefaces? They are not something you reconstruct just like that, especially that is not allowed to that and it is not simple to do it, and especially to do it right.
Let's start with this, what feel, what effect you want to generate with? What is the type of poetry, what is it about?
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Sandro
28 Aug 2009 — 3:24am
Hi Easton,
as you might know, Arial is a rip-off of Helvetica, with cloned metrics. Its entire raison d'être is a morally questionable one: avoiding license fees (further reading: The Scourge of Arial by Mark Simonson). The only advantages that Arial acually might have over Helvetica – a huge character set and good screen rendering – is probably irrelevant for your project. Hence, I’d say the best Arial for print is a Helvetica. Which one? Well, opinions do vary. Neue Helvetica is cleaner, more consistent across the weights. Some prefer the classic Helvetica, just because of its quirks. Others, again, praise the URW digitization.
Times Ten has oldstyle figures and small caps, which makes it a more versatile and dapper choice than the system TNR. More information in this thread.
Courier might be the hardest nut. The digital versions of both Courier and Courier New don’t perform very well in print (nor on screen), to say the least. There are so many good alternatives – if you really want to go with a typewriter/monospace for ‘extended texts and poetry’.
Having said that, it is not clear to me if you are looking for the best versions of Arial/Times/Courier that actually go by those names, or rather for good alternatives from the same genres. If the latter is the case, have a look at Stephen’s lists:
Times Alternatives
Helvetica Alternatives
Typewriter and Monospaced faces
Hope this helps.
F
28 Aug 2009 — 4:17am
@Florian Hardwig: Times Ten is exactly what I was looking for. Danke für hilfen. Das war ein perfekt antwort. Ich muss alternative Schriften finden. Ich habe deine Website gesehen — sehr shön. Ich habe ein Studio in Manteuffelstraße 58, Kreuzberg. Mein Deutsch is schlecht. Ich machen ein Integrationkurs jetzt. Ich liebe Berlin. Ich möchte einander begegnen.
28 Aug 2009 — 4:38am
Glad to help.
And: you got mail. Manteuffelstraße? I’m sure we can make that half a mile. ;-)
Cheers,
F
28 Aug 2009 — 6:10am
Was zum Teufel, mein Deutsch ist auch schlecht.
28 Aug 2009 — 11:44am
Adding to the "avoid Courier New" comment. The font has hair-line stroke width, which worked okay on screen (before ClearType and grayscale) but which renders very light on high-res output devices. You could go with the bold, or better yet pick another fixed-pitch font.
31 Aug 2009 — 1:13am
Georgia
31 Aug 2009 — 6:44pm
I find it hard to comprehend why those are the three faces you are limiting yourself to.