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Body Copy : Humanist Slab Serif
Posted by AndrewSipe in
11 Jun 2007 — 10:33am
11 Jun 2007 — 10:33am
I'm doing a small 2 page report with a lot of text and I wanted to use a Humanist Slab Serif. I've tried PMN Caecilia and ITC Officina Serif, Caecilia has a rather large x-height and loose tracking, where Officina has a smaller x-height and rather condensed feel. Is there a similar font that would fall somewhere in between these two?
Any suggestions will do.
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11 Jun 2007 — 10:45am
TheSerif? It's still got a large x-height. Slightly more condensed than Caecilia but not nearly as much as Officina.
http://www.identifont.com/find?font=theserif&q=Go
11 Jun 2007 — 10:48am
The Serif might be too "slab-serify" but The Mix looks better.
11 Jun 2007 — 10:50am
Then consider a wedge serif instead: it would give you the honest
charm of the slab style without the brutishness. Plus it would be
slightly more readable.
hhp
11 Jun 2007 — 10:53am
Any recommendations for a wedge serif?
11 Jun 2007 — 10:55am
I love TheMix. I've used it for bodycopy a lot and have always been pleased with the way it sets. (Some people don't like the Q.)
11 Jun 2007 — 10:57am
Back to slabs:
Soho: New, more mechanical, available in lots of weights and several widths
Chaparral: more organic, more readable, size and weight options, good contrast for reading
Amasis: somewhat organic, like Caecilia but softer, more contrast, some bracketing
11 Jun 2007 — 11:15am
(Heh, the trap worked like a charm! :-)
TMF Patria, Foundry Form, FF Page, Linotype Aptifer, FF Olsen ...
BTW, terminology refinement: you want the sheared wedge style,
not the pointy wedge one (AKA "Latin"), which looks too self-assured.
hhp
11 Jun 2007 — 11:39am
I don't know Hrant, these seem pretty stiff. I do like FF Page Serif though it (as weird as this will sound) might be too elegant. If this document wasn't just a working data report and was geared as marketing, I'd definitely be buying Page Serif. I'm putting that one on my wish list though.
I think I'm going to go with The Serif. I do appreciate all the suggestions. The collective brain trust definitely had some good ones.
I'll even make a suggestion: Placebo Serif
11 Jun 2007 — 11:45am
Page is by Albert Boton, and old-schooler,
so "elegant" is not a suprising observation!
Its x-height is quite large though, so you
wouldn't want to set it too large.
Placebo I hadn't seen - interesting!
Oh, and I just remembered Silica - very cool.
hhp
11 Jun 2007 — 11:57am
Yeah, I stumbled past Placebo looking for similar slab serifs on Myfonts. It has a very charming quality too it. I don't know if that's a good thing, it might not be the body copy workhorse I'd need.
According to Myfonts, Silica doesn't have any italics.
11 Jun 2007 — 12:02pm
> Silica doesn’t have any italics.
Now you know a big reason for my liking it. :-)
It does have a fine gradation of weights, which I actually think
is much more conducive to sensical emphasis in most types of text.
hhp
11 Jun 2007 — 12:04pm
Just and observation, it's not much of an issue regarding these reports, no italics are used.
11 Jun 2007 — 12:34pm
Although you seem to have decided, I had to chime in with a wedge serif: Kandal.
11 Jun 2007 — 6:40pm
Kandal is sort of in the gray area between slab and wedge (which Chaparral is in too). "Sheared Wedge" suggests another list:
Swift
Oranda
Charter
Fairplex
RePublic
Once you abandon conventional classification schemes, there are a lot of directions you could take this.
17 Jun 2007 — 6:50pm
Good ideas from Carl. Also FF Avance.
22 Nov 2010 — 5:30am
In terms of tracking for Caecilia, what about just tightening it up in the layout software? I'm doing that in a test document and it looks OK (better than the default), but maybe I'm missing something?