The font of wisdom
Good news, fellow font nerds!
After more than a decade spent in Times/Times New Roman purgatory, I felt I was long overdue for a change in the font I use for all my documents. But this sort of decision can’t be approached casually. So when I got a Microsoft Office upgrade a few months ago, I started experimenting with various fonts. I was looking for something serifed but easy on the eyes, distinctive but not too fruity (this immediately disqualified “Fruit”). My ideal font would be the same one that the New Yorker uses, so I could set my margins to form 2.5″-columns and make my writing look like it’s been published there (kind of like the hours with Photoshop that many heterosexual males spend grafting various celebrities’ heads onto nude bodies—except my version of the exercise is much, much sadder). But after some poking around on the web, I concluded that the NYer is so protective of their font that there don’t appear to be any passable facsimiles of it available. Not for free, anyway.
I flirted with Bodini (because Joan Didion uses it), Baskerville, Bell, Calisto (which I discounted for no better reason than that it would remind me of Calista Flockhart every time I used it), Didot, Georgia, Zapf Dingbats, Hoefler, Caslon, and a few others—even looking around for good old Palatino before I realized it wasn’t included with this version of MS Word. This is how I came to be was sitting in the office at school last week, selecting huge blocks of my own text and clicking through various fonts, similar to the way people bring books of carpet samples home to obsess over. (If it looks like I’m doing something important on my laptop, odds are I’m actually engaging in this or some other, even more piddling form of procrastination). At some point, Philip walked by my desk and I remembered that I’d really liked the font he used in workshop last semester. (Are you still reading? Really? Why?) I asked him what it was and he said, “Garamond,” and with a tone of voice almost childlike in its self-satisfaction, he continued: “Because it makes my writing look like it’s in a book.”
Garamond! Of course! I tried it out on some documents and damn, that shit is tight! Now, instead of slogging through text that looks like this:
You can experience this typographic breath of fresh air right here:
Much better!
Of course, my blog will remain in Lucida, because the web is a pitiless, insatiable sans-serif whore.
Posted: March 2nd, 2006 under General, Reading & Writing.
Comments: 11
Comments
Comment from Robin
Time: 2 March 2006, 17:11
Jesus, this is the shit you’re doing with, what, $15,000 a year? I can’t wait until I’m a grad student so I can waste time too.
Hey, remember the time you stood behind Calista Flockhart at the Iowa City Barnes and Noble? As I recall hours later, after you found out it was her you cursed yourself for a week for not grabbing her ass while you had the chance.
Comment from Margaret
Time: 2 March 2006, 17:12
Here’s a sad story: As I was reading along about your font plight, I said to myself, “Oh! He should try Garamond!” I’m not sure if it’s sad because I have font recommendations, or if it’s sad because someone else beat me to the punch. Either way, Garamond is a very worthy font indeed.
And in a further move of dorkdom, I’d like to point you to a New Yorker article about typesetting from about two months ago. It mentions the NY Times’ tight control of their typeface.
Are you still reading? Really? Why?
Comment from Jake
Time: 2 March 2006, 17:16
I read that New Yorker article. If there’s a rock star of typography, it’s clearly that guy.
Yes, I remember standing behind Calista Flockhart in the cafe and thinking, “She’s not that skinny. She’s just tiny.” I could’ve put her in the front basket of a bicycle, E.T.-style.
Comment from Nick
Time: 2 March 2006, 18:15
Garamond is the shit. I took a class in college about fonts. This post reminded me of that class.
Comment from Kate
Time: 2 March 2006, 20:00
Wow. If you, Margaret and I ever got together over beers we would bore the hell out of the bar…
That being said, congratulations on your new font!
It’s beautiful. I really like Garamond Light Condensed for headlines and the standard Garamond for body copy. Frutiger (45 light, in particular) is a nice, sans serif complement to Garamond. That is, if you’re looking for a sans serif complement. Georgia is designed to be read onscreen, so if you’re ever looking for a new blog font, you might want to revisit Georgia, or its less-sophisticated sans serif partner Verdana. I can’t believe I’m such a typography geek. I thoroughly enjoyed your post and applaud your endeavor to find the font that makes your writing look writerly. Times New Roman is for babies.
Comment from katie
Time: 2 March 2006, 20:15
well, obviously, I could jerk off about typefaces for about four paragraphs in this comment, but I’ll restrain myself.
and I agree, Garamond is the shit. I prefer the Adobe Garamond myself, but that’s only because it has a set of swash capitals, ligatures and a bunch of alternate characters. . hooray for swash capitals!!!
Comment from Jake
Time: 2 March 2006, 21:00
Wow, Katie. I think you just out-nerded me and everyone who would ever read this blog. Well done!
Comment from Court
Time: 2 March 2006, 21:01
I use Garamond too. The organization I worked for in Russia had deemed it “The official font of TPAA” and ordered me to use it for all official documents. Now I’m stuck on it. It’s proper enough for resumes, but more literary and fluid. Times New Roman is sooo twentieth century!
Comment from John
Time: 2 March 2006, 21:11
When I was in high school, I was the editor of the yearbook. My adviser made me go to yearbook camp. In 1989, Garamond was the talk of yearbook camp. “You still use Bookman?!? Check out Garamond!”
“And Garamond Bold!”
Yep, yearbook camp.
Comment from Wadsbone
Time: 2 March 2006, 23:21
Hey, at least you’ve got a lot of choices. We programmers only get to choose from fixed-width fonts, which usually allows you a choice between Courier and Courier New. But, I recently discoverd Andale Mono lurking on Mac, and I feel like a new man.
Comment from Joe
Time: 3 March 2006, 02:50
You people are all faggy tea-sippers.
Swirlz is the only font I’ll ever recognize.
But, if you see a font out there and you really want to figure out what it is, I recommend using . It’s worked for me several times.
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