60 brilliant typefaces for corporate design - smashing magazine

URL: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/03/20/60-brilliant-typefaces-for-corporate-design/

Typography is more than being legible and looking good. Among other things, effectivetypography manages to achieve two important objectives: a) to create an appropriate atmosphereand enable users to develop trust toward the site and b) to make sure visitors get the mainmessage of the site and (if possible) become interested in the services offered on the site. Sincewritten text is the most efficient instrument to communicate with visitors precisely and directly,the power of typography shouldn’t be underestimated.

To communicate effectively, typography requires appropriate typefaces. Last year we’vepresented 80 Beautiful Typefaces For Professional Design, a selection of excellent typefaces oneshould be aware of when developing web-sites. Now it’s time to update our selection withtypefaces we’ve missed then and new typefaces which have been developed over the last year.

Below you’ll find over 60 first-class typefaces for corporate design. Please notice that theyare not free; however, we’ve focused on typefaces which are definitely worth spending money on.So which typefaces are “bulletproof”? What fonts can be used effectively in almost everyCorporate Design? And what are the options for unique, but still incredibly beautiful typefaces?Let’s find out.

You might also want to take a look at the

post 40 Free Fonts For Professional Design and

at the section Fonts which has a number of typography-related posts.

HapticThe Haptic family is a sans serif typeface which was optimized for use in small sized text. Itserves well in attention seeking headlines. Comes in Roman and Italic with seven weightseach. Type & Graphics by Henning Skibbe.

60 Brilliant Typefaces For Corporate Design - Smashing Magazine http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/03/20/60-brilliant-typefaces-for...

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FF Meta SerifA collaborative work by Erik Spiekermann, Christian Schwarty and Kris Sowersby. The designerscreated a typeface with metrics that are not identical to FF Meta, but optically the same. Nowwhat you see is what you get, a harmonious serif/sans type system. FF Meta Serif isavailable in four weights: Book, Medium, Bold, and Black, each with Italics. All styles includeSmall Caps, lining and oldstyle figures in proportional and tabular widths, and a range of arrowsand other symbols.


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MuseoA contemporary semi-slab serif font. This OpenType font family comes in five weights andoffers supports CE languages and even esperanto. Beside ligatures, contextual alternatives,stylistic alternates, fractions and proportional/tabular figures Museo also has a ‘case’ feature forcase-sensitive forms. This typeface comes in 5 weights; three of them are free.

BeorcanaBeorcana is a calligraphic sans, or serifless roman. Beorcana is unusual for a sans serif type; it isdesigned for extended reading. Beorcana fills a niche in book typography and also serves awide range of purposes from fine print, cartography, and information design to signage, editorial


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design and invitations. Designed by Carl Crossgrove. “Beorcana has what it takes to become aclassic.”

GloriolaType System / Superfamily winning entry on TDC2 2008. Designed by Tomáš Brousil fromPrague, Czech Republic.

Agile TypefaceThis typeface was born as Endexamen of the postgraduate study TypeMedia in The Hague. Not


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released yet, but worth to be kept in mind.

MaratMarat is an elegant typeface with a soft and friendly appearance. It comes in 5 differentweights and includes Italics, Small Caps, various OpenType features and a wide range of languagesupport. Each font includes oldstyle and lining figures, both proportional and tabular. Created byLudwig Übele from Den Haag, The Netherlands.


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Graphik“I ended up drawing inspiration from all parts of the 20th century. The heavy end of the family isbased in part on Paul Renner’s Plak, a relatively obscure display typeface cut only in large sizes ofwoodtype, that is related to his heavier weights of Futura but has rounder, friendlier, fatterproportions“. By Christian Schwartz.

RondanaRondana is a tribute to the purity of line and futuristic aesthetics of the 60s and 70s.Geometry in service of Typography, rather than opposite.


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Stag Sans“The normal/quirky balance is a bit different in the heavy weights, which are more likely to beused for enormous headlines. The final result is a perfect match for Stag, and also works as amuscular counterpoint to just about any elegant serif face.”


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Candy ScriptInspired by Argentina and its culture, Alejandro Paul’s Candy Script captures the country’s spirit.It comes from the tradition of window sign painting, but its thick hand-brushed characters— with alternates for almost every upper and lowercase letter – have a personality all their own.Tons of OpenType alternates included, over 600 characters in all.

FF UtilityDesigned by Lukas Schneider. Comes in give weights — light, regular, medium, bold and black.

EalingRound, elegant and pretty thin. Six weights by Michael Parson.


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PublicoThe openness of the headline face made designing a matching text face very straightforward.Elegance gives way to sturdiness in the serifs, and the ball terminals are less pronounced,resulting in an even texture. Like Guardian Egyptian, Publico Text is drawn to work under thespecific layout and printing conditions of newspapers but doesn’t take its design cues fromtraditional newspaper typefaces, resulting in a fresh and contemporary look.

AffairAffair is an new calligraphic typeface by Alejandro Paul with a party full of swash characters,ligatures, and ornaments. By default, it’s simply an elegant yet readable display face. Dress it upwith alternates, and it becomes irresistibly attractive, in styles from glamourous to over-the-top.


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PreloA large sans-serif family with 18 weights with ligatures, alternates, fractions, scientific inferiors,superscript, swashes, oldstyle figures, lining figures, tabular figures, numerators, denominators,ordinals and smallcaps.

DST GlosaA traditional, roman serif-family which comes in 8 weights (roman, roman italic, medium,


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medium italic, bold, bold italic, black, black italic) and has a number of additional features.OpenType.

OlicanaBeautiful hand-drawing in action. Comes in two weights — rough and smooth. Designed byNick Cooke.


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Malaga“At first glance Malaga has all the earmarks of a sturdy old style serif that would hold up well toany amount of reading. Healthy spacing, large x-height, short ascenders and descenders. It is thesecond glance that has you realizing that it is perfect as well for larger headlines andbolder statements.” A modern classic by Xavier Dupré.

FF Unit RoundedDesigned by Erik Spiekermann.


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Costa PTFCosta ptf was designed to be appropriate for any use where you might desire to give an informallook in titling sizes but still need good legibility in small text sizes.

Arno Pro“A multi-weight, multi-style, multi-optical sized, multi-lingual family of fonts in the classicVenetian tradition. It comes bundled with Adobe Creative Suite 3, and it’s almost worthupgrading just to get Arno.” Designed by Robert Slimbach.


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KinescopeKinescope is a dashing 1940s-style brush script. It was inspired by hand-lettered titles inFleischer Brothers’ Superman cartoon series. This font features OpenType to automaticallychoose the most aesthetically pleasing letter shapes as you type as well as extended languagesupport. By Mark Simonson.

AnzianoA typeface for books. When creating a traditional typeface, Stefan Hattenbach was influencedby earlier designs. Anziano shows touches of Weiss (Emil Rudolf Weiss, 1926) – another classicbook typeface. Stefan had appreciated the design of Weiss for a long time.


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Celeste Sans OTThis OpenType serif family comes in 10 weights.

SloopHand-writing: sexy, elegant, feminine and inviting.

PresidenciaThis typeface is supposed to become an institutional typeface. Designed by Gabriel MartínezMeave from Mexico City. Winner of the TDC2 2008 award in the category “Text / Type Family”.


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Buffet ScriptBuffet Script is based on calligraphy by Alf Becker, arguably the greatest American signlettering artist of all time. Buffet Script’s OpenType programming contains discretionaryligatures, stylistic and contextual alternates, all interacting with each other to allow thecomposition of just the typographic look and feel. This font is best used where lush elegance isa design requirement.

RonniaOne of the most remarkable characteristic of this humanistic sans serif is its versatility. Ronnia’spersonality performs admirably in headlines, but is diffident enough for continuous text andsmall text alike. Ronnia features about 800 characters per weight, including small caps,fractions, old style and lining numbers, scientific superior/inferior figures, and a set of symbolsand arrows. It supports over 40 languages that use the Latin extended alphabet.


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TrinitéClassic, created by Bram de Does in 1982.

NewzaldA decent, hardworking serif designed for the international editorial environment. Itseconomical rigour is drawn from classic Dutch typefaces by J.F. Rosart and J.M. Fleischmann.Newzald’s large x-height and slightly condensed forms allow many words to the column withoutlooking cramped or ungainly.


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FP Dancer Pro Package

Fondo


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BreeA typeface with a strong personality.

DancerBy Morten Olsen.


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Quiosco

Xtra Sans


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FF Eureka Sans family


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Archer

Whitney

Mercury Text


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Chronicle Deck & Display

Chronicle Text

Basic Commercial

FF Bau


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Paralucent

Syntax

Region

FF Absara Headline


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National

Voluta

Maquette

Omnes [via ilt]


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ThesisAn ultimate corporate typeface, designed by Lucas de Groot. Including 144 fonts, both serif andsans-serif fonts.

Malaga Volume

NexusDesigned by William McChesney. Comes in bold, bold oblique, oblique and regular. Price: $49for all 4 weights.

Vesper


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Currently in development.

Athelas

Frida (.pdf)


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Typographica’s Favorite Typefaces of 2007

Typographica’s fourth annual review showcases the best in new typeface design.

I Love Typography

An ultimate blog about typography.

Type Director’s Club

The annual typeface competition by Type Director’s Club.

Typefacedesign.org

Work from the MA Typeface Design class of 2007 at the University of Reading.

100 Best Typefaces Of All Time

An outstanding selection by Fontshop.de.

Type foundries: Fontshop.com, Emigre, Veer, Hoefler & Frere-Jones, Linotype and

many-many more.

Vitaly Friedman

Vitaly Friedman loves beautiful content and doesn’t like to give in easily. Vitaly is writer, speaker,author and editor-in-chief of Smashing Magazine, an online magazine dedicated to designers anddevelopers.

Responsive Design


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PhotoshopTypographyMobile DesignUsability and UXDesign Legacy and Art

JavaScript & jQueryWordPress TechniquesBack-End & AdministrationHTML5 TutorialsCSS, CSS3Bored?


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60 brilliant typefaces for corporate design - smashing magazine

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