Rules for Choosing a Typeface
While the type chart supplies some specific guidance in selecting type and combinations of types, this document provides more general guidance. The rules here are intended to help you make type decisions at a more global or macro level. Simply for convenience they are stated as quasi-rules.
- Consider the medium for which the original typeface was designed. For instance, Frutiger designed a number of sans serif faces that were intended to function as signage that could be read at a distance. Many of these faces are in common use and can serve for presentations as well as display faces in text.
- Check the weight and conformity of the face to its original throughout the proofing process. Oftentimes what appears to be a good typographic choice does not reproduce well. Stroke widths, for instance, might be too fine for newsprint. Check your local classified ads for many examples of this problem.
- Select faces that suit both the task and the subject matter. An italic face that has an exaggerated lean, for instance, might be perfect for a popular book on cycling. Goudy Sans, for example, has such a tilt and a sense of flow to the characters.
- Be sure the face you select can provide all of the characters you need. For a text that is math intensive, for example, try Palatino or Zapf International. If you need small caps, Frutiger and Syntax (as well as many others) cannot be used. If you need a matching phonetic face (like Cyrillic), Baskerville or Minion would be good choices. This does not exhaust the kinds of specialized character decisions you may encounter.
- If type choices are severely limited, select only one and use it to its best advantage. My text, for example, is set in Sabon, a relatively common serifed bookface.