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05-21-2010, 09:07 PM | #1 |
Elven Warrior
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: United States
Posts: 401
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Of all the fonts...
This may perhaps bore some people, but do any of you have a favorite font? For some reason even a book's font can give me a hint at its atmosphere and style; I can tell whether the book is old or new, whether it is intended for scholars or dreamers, for study or leisure.
I, for example, am drawn to old typewriter fonts. Newton's Principia was first published in a slightly beaten, but scholarly typewriter font (by the way, does anyone know where I can find this font online?). Anyone?
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Elleth Valatari "We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil." — J.R.R. Tolkien Last edited by EllethValatari : 05-21-2010 at 09:09 PM. |
05-21-2010, 09:16 PM | #2 |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
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Good God, aren't you in high school? What are you doing reading Newton's Principia, and referring to it by the Latin title?
All printing back tended to be in slightly uneven, creating what you are referring to as a "typewriter" effect. If you look at a facsimile (or, if you're lucky, an original! ) of a book printed from anytime, pretty much, until around the end of the nineteenth century, it's always a bit "beaten." I'm sure you can find plenty of fonts that stylistically appropriate that effect on line, but of course it will only ever be an imitation, since the original would have been due to defects in the type of the printer, which (presumably) are no longer in operation.
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Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
05-21-2010, 09:24 PM | #3 |
Elven Warrior
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Location: United States
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Actually, no, I'm in 8th grade. Today was my final day of school! I go to a classical school, and our science text this year was Newton's Principia, along with your average Physics textbook. As for the Latin reference, I have taken Latin for 8 years, and I was actually introduced to Newton's work by its Latin name.
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Elleth Valatari "We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil." — J.R.R. Tolkien Last edited by EllethValatari : 05-21-2010 at 09:26 PM. |
05-21-2010, 09:29 PM | #4 |
Elven Maiden
Join Date: Aug 2002
Posts: 3,309
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I'm a little bit jealous of that. That sounds neat. You really don't seem like an 8th grader, and I know how 8th graders are.
I don't really have a favorite font, but when I was younger I liked Papyrus like everyone else. Now every time I see it used, I think, "Papyrus? Really?" Last edited by katya : 05-21-2010 at 09:30 PM. |
05-21-2010, 09:41 PM | #5 | |
Elven Warrior
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Quote:
That's not to say I don't love shopping as every other teenage girl does, I'd just rather shop for books!
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Elleth Valatari "We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil." — J.R.R. Tolkien |
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05-22-2010, 10:19 AM | #6 | |
Elven Maiden
Join Date: Aug 2002
Posts: 3,309
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Quote:
For books and things with paragraphs or text rather than just a title, simple fonts are best. They should be easy to read and not distracting. My least favorite fonts are ones that try to look like Chinese writing or ones that try to look like cyrillic. The "oriental" ones because they look cheesy and lack the elegance of real Chinese writing, and the cyrillic ones because the letters are all wrong. Like backwards "R" is "ya" not "r". But I suppose Russian people do the same thing with the roman alphabet. I've heard, anyway, that on devices that don't input cyrillic, there's a system of using roman letters to look like cyrillic. |
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05-21-2010, 10:00 PM | #7 | |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
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Quote:
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Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
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05-21-2010, 11:48 PM | #8 |
Elven Warrior
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Yes, really! So you went to a classical college but not a classical grade/high school?
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Elleth Valatari "We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil." — J.R.R. Tolkien Last edited by EllethValatari : 05-21-2010 at 11:49 PM. |
05-22-2010, 12:47 AM | #9 | |
Cardboard Harp of Gondor Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: IM IN UR POSTZ, EDITIN' UR WURDZ
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Quote:
I also love old TW fonts. Other than those I am typically not too picky, or crazy about most fonts. Typically any 'special' fonts tend to get overdone. I DO love calligraphers though. My mom used to be one, but unfortunately she had some health problems in her 30's that made her hands sort of stiff, so she doesn't write much by hand now. I love calligraphy because it has that 'mechanical' precision to it, but really good calligraphers put a little something into each letter that if you look closely enough at it you can just tell that it's barely different from any of the others. You and my second oldest sister would've gotten along really well back when she was your age . She was just like that. |
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05-22-2010, 03:16 PM | #10 |
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
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Ain't that the truth. I used to like them, when I was younger. Now I just cringe, and blush.
Palatino and Helvetica are nice. I don't really think about it much, though, 'cause all my papers are TNR.
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Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
05-22-2010, 03:20 PM | #11 |
Elven Maiden
Join Date: Aug 2002
Posts: 3,309
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Comic Sans is pretty horrible. Same here with my papers being usually TNR. The only time recently I've had to chose a font for something fancy was for a store logo in Second Life. We chose some random thing from the internet somewhere. Anything that you can recognize, unless it's something simple like Arial, is not good. Like Papyrus.
I write novels and stories in a monospace font in the simplest text editor I have. |
05-22-2010, 03:47 PM | #12 | |
Elven Warrior
Join Date: Jan 2009
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Quote:
Same for me, TNR for papers. I don't have many chances to look through fonts, I just started thinking about them when I was reading my Principia.
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Elleth Valatari "We have come from God, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contain error, will also reflect a splintered fragment of the true light, the eternal truth that is with God. Our myths may be misguided, but they steer however shakily towards the true harbour, while materialistic 'progress' leads only to a yawning abyss and the Iron Crown of the power of evil." — J.R.R. Tolkien Last edited by EllethValatari : 08-06-2010 at 11:59 AM. |
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05-23-2010, 07:58 AM | #13 |
Princess of the Noldor (and Administrative Empress of the Lone Islands)
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I don't quite agree - I think Comic Sans is cute.
But that also means that it should only be used for cute topics, like kids' web sites and the like, not for anything that you want people to take seriously. In print? It works fine for "You are invited to my 5th Birthday Party " - but not much else.
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Signature picture art - Bard the Bowman - by vigshane Avatar art - Footsteps of Spring (a young Luthien) - by Henning Janssen Last edited by Varnafindë : 05-23-2010 at 08:00 AM. |
05-23-2010, 08:42 AM | #14 |
Elf Lord
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Du vant fontz? Try dez!
FRE HEKTOR! FRE HEKTOR! FRE HEKTOR! FRE HEKTOR! FRE HEKTOR! FRE HEKTOR! FRE HEKTOR! FRE HEKTOR! FRE HEKTOR! FRE HEKTOR! FRE HEKTOR! FRE HEKTOR! FRE HEKTOR! FRE HEKTOR! FRE HEKTOR! FRE HEKTOR! FRE HEKTOR! FRE HEK
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
05-23-2010, 10:29 AM | #15 | |
Elven Maiden
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Quote:
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05-22-2010, 01:55 AM | #16 |
the Shrike
Join Date: Mar 2002
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Gil sans, and helvetica.
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05-22-2010, 04:52 AM | #17 |
Princess of the Noldor (and Administrative Empress of the Lone Islands)
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Palatino and Tahoma.
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Signature picture art - Bard the Bowman - by vigshane Avatar art - Footsteps of Spring (a young Luthien) - by Henning Janssen |
05-22-2010, 09:42 AM | #18 |
Elf Lady
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Verdana. Boring, but I can distinguish the i and the l at least.
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Love always, deeply and true ★ Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer. ★ Friendship is sharing openly, laughing often, trusting always, caring deeply.
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05-22-2010, 04:52 PM | #19 |
Elf Lady
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We are required to write our papers in Verdana. It used to be TNR, but the schools gradually switched.
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Love always, deeply and true ★ Friends are those rare people who ask how we are and then wait to hear the answer. ★ Friendship is sharing openly, laughing often, trusting always, caring deeply.
...The Earth laughs in flowers ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Hamatreya"... |
05-22-2010, 04:53 PM | #20 |
Cardboard Harp of Gondor Join Date: Sep 2001
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Every single time I see the title of this thread the only thing I can think of is Casa Blanca.
Every. Single. Time. >.< |
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