Your favourite body fonts?

Xenonsoft

Active Member
What are your favourite body fonts (and sizes?)

Curious, just choosing which font to go for on a site I'm working on.

Arial is still up there for me, albeit a rip-off font. Tahoma ticks some boxes too.
 
Yeah Tahoma for me too! I ocassionally use Helvetica, but only when i'm feeling particularly annoying.
 
I've not experimented with it, but Times probably has it's place. It's just awful when used in the wrong context though (didn't that sound snobbish!). I'm a big fan of Georgia for headers.
 
I'm surprised this hasn't got more attention. I'm currently deciding on a body font for a project, undecided as of yet.
 
Helvetica could be a "cliché" or something. But i love that type! I should use it most of the time in my work as graphic designer.

But the best is a good hand job!! (haha) I mean drawing typography of course :p
 
Georgia is a personal favourite of mine.

Am I right in thinking verdanna was actually designed for "web/digital" rather than print?
 
Okey, I just gotta ask, why Arial? It's horrible, and ESPECIALLY used for body text. Works on the web, but in print, when you have the option to go for Helvetica (or better, Univers)? Main issue with Arial beside the details is the spacing/kerning. So IMO, if you are doing bodytype, stay the heck away from Arial.

I like Times New Roman, properly spaced in capitals, not too fond of it for body though. Overall, my favs for body is Univers for sans and Adobe Garamond for serif.

edit: br3n, you're right, Verdana is a screen-type. It can work for print body in small sizes (which is what it was designed for, which is why it's much more round than say Arial which is thin and high,


edit 2: I just saw that you wrote "for a site I'm working on", which makes me do a facepalm, blush a bit, and say that yeah, Arial work nice, just make shure you test it for readability on a Windows XP-machine, it's hard to read in small sizes without anti-aliasing.


Oooopsie!
 
Arial works well on the web for body text. That and helvetica seem identical to me at that size, so I struggle to see how those who say helvetica is far better at that size can back that up. Obviously, it's all down to opinions.

electricalyce said:
edit 2: I just saw that you wrote "for a site I'm working on", which makes me do a facepalm, blush a bit, and say that yeah, Arial work nice, just make shure you test it for readability on a Windows XP-machine, it's hard to read in small sizes without anti-aliasing.


Oooopsie!
Will do, if I indeed choose arial! I've been using Trebuchet MS in my designs, although I've realised that all my text is 88% width the other day, which really confused me, as now I'm used to the thinner width it looked so odd wider. Anyway, I'll have to see how they look when the coding gets going.
 
Theres a really boring video on kontain by one of the fi staff showing how different browsers render different fonts at different sizes, if i remember correctly arial was the one that changed dramatically.
 
Interesting. I've not used Times yet for any body fonts, it just screams default and is so overused that it's really lost anything that it had to offer for me. In some circumstances, it may work well, but for most I just can't be using it.
 
Body copy on the web, you have three real options: Arial (Helvetica looks nice as body on a mac, shite on a PC), Verdana (specifically for screen as mentioned) or Georgia (Microsoft's serif screen counterpart to Verdana). Times doesn't scale well and is pretty ugly anyway.
 
I've pretty much always chosen Georgia if i wanted a serif body font. I like it!
 
For me, it just depends on the site and the overall "feel" of it. But most of the time, I go for sans-serif.
 
When using word i always seem to use Calibri font. When its used for webpages it displays strange. As if the font is missing area's, i dunno why! I normally use Arial for web pages.
 
Not necessarily my favourite, but one I use A LOT and have come to quite like, is Avenir. The Book seems to be a decent weight for body copy and works reversed out too (on good stock), although for newsprint at least a weight up is required.
 
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