Two days ago I started publishing the first part of my list of 10 favorite typeface families. Today the second part, featuring the sans serifs.
Avenir
Adrian Frutiger, 1988
I love Avenir because it’s finds a perfect balance between being clean and geometric on one side, and friendly and characterful on the other side. Which is not a very original remark from my side, as Frutiger himself said: “Avenir is intended to be nothing more or less than a clear and clean representation of modern typographical trends, giving the designer a typeface which is strictly modern and at the same time human, that is suitably refined and elegant for use in texts of any length.”
Frutiger
Adrian Frutiger, 1976
Frutiger is a bit like Helvetica, in the sense that it fits anywhere. It’s my fallback, when I have no clue which family to use. Because it is a bit older and has been used a lot, it is not the most eye-catching choice, but it’s so full of quality to complete almost any job.
National
Kris Sowersby, 2007
So far, most of my favorite serifs were pretty recent, while my sanses were relatively old. This one breaks that pattern. While Sowersby’s Newzald was already close to my top-10, National definitely makes the cut. It has a bit of a Frutiger feeling in my taste, and maybe one day it will live up to Frutiger’s reputation.
Vera Sans
Bitstream, GNOME foundation, 2003
Vera Sans is an odd one in this list. It’s the only free font, and the only font that I wouldn’t use to set print in. However, it’s my absolute favorite choice for reading text on a computer screen. I use it as the interface font on my laptop, and my Palm and BlackBerry also have a version of it under a different name. I think it is based on Jim Lyles’ Prima Sans (1997).
Although, admitted, if Vera Sans wouldn’t exist, probably Verdana would take its place in this list.
Linotype Veto
Marco Ganz, 1994
The foundry claims you can also use it to set body text, but I have never dared to do that. But still, Veto is my favorite font that can’t be used for that purpose, and also the only non-body-text font in this list. Oh man, look at those headlines. Yummie.
To round up…
Just like yesterday I will now give you the links to the identifont-pages of the above-mentioned fonts. There you can link on to more information, samples, and purchase pages.
Finally, I would like to say that this list is of course very personally biased. And moreover, since I can impossibly buy licenses to all fonts, and I need to use a font before I can form an opinion on it, it lacks many candidates. For instance, if I would already have invested in the lovely looking Meta Serif and Frutiger Serif, there would be a good change that they might kick out another font from the list. Maybe in another list next year.
[…] Edit: part 2 […]