Re: Serif vs. sans serif? (Take II)
<<Because of Apple, Garamond is a popular choice for technical manuals.>>
No, it was a popular font because of its esthetics and legibility first;
Apple chose it for that reason. It's used commonly in technical manuals
simply because Garamond is part of the core font pack that ships with ATM
and many laser printers.
I think we're talking apples (not Apples) and oranges here. The version of Garamond that ships with HP laser printers, at least, is an antique version of Garamond. I know how pleased I was to find it on my computer when I installed the new printer, and how disappointed I was to find that it wasn't the font I'd been looking for, though it's a nice enough font.
I've since acquired another version of Garamond, but I still don't have my own copy of Apple Garamond. I'm sure it's available somewhere, but I've never needed it enough to pay for it. Or had a job where someone else would pay for it. :-)
<<For example, I personally like Optima, but I'd think twice of using it in
documentation because in the past it's been a favorite of perfume ads, and
at least some readers would find it subtly odd or even off-putting.>>
Okay, hands up everyone who knew this and abandoned Optima for this
reason... Anybody?
Well, not that particular one, but I chose not to use Mistral at one point because there was annoying ad campaign using it on billboards and I didn't want anyone to connect the two.
So how do you choose--objectively--between two fonts that are both "good
enough"? You do it subjectively. There's no one perfect font for every
combination of conditions. Once you've narrowed down your choice based on
objective criteria, there are always several alternatives, and the choice
between them comes down to purely subjective factors.
And I tend to go in streaks of font use, too. For years I lusted after Goudy, which a friend used a lot in her publications. Then I acquired it, and used it for just about everything for a while. Now my favorite current font is Berling, and you can expect to see that in my documents. I tend to care much more about body fonts than display fonts, which makes me weird, I suppose.
--
Beth Friedman / bjf -at- wavefront -dot- com
"The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from."
-- Andrew Tanenbaum
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References:
Serif vs. sans serif? (Take II): From: Hart, Geoff
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