Lovely specimen, Kent, and certainly a fantastic typeface.

ChrisL

Touching on the assertion that if sans were usable, they would be used, the myth feature in today's Science Times notes that studies have shown little or no benefit from stretching before exercise.

Even if you don't want to use sans in general, this list might be useful for those using a body font lacking a good bold, as it was a common practice to use a sans as a bold in the past, as sans, at least back then, were darker.

Kent, I am a very big fan of Whitman, but I need Bold Italic in order to buy the family--I can't use it without. Your own website samples italics for both Semibold and Bold weights, but neither Font Bureau nor MyFonts makes either one available. How can I buy bold italics for Whitman?

That is great news, Kent...we're all grateful for those extra fonts.

Thanks for the great work Kent, and the info.

Hi everybody! :D
This thread is amazing! Very useful!

What do you think about design a book in Helvetica?
No one mentioned it. Helvetica is a ubiquitous typeface! Does Helvetica has quality for it?

J itsa JOTAOITENTA&CINCO

Can has Helvetica burger?

Must ask ceiling cat!

Hi everyone,

I am just finishing writing my PhD thesis in Physical Chemistry... not much of a graphic designer! :) Since I have to use plenty of numbers and greek characters in equations and body text, I am thinking on going for the Minion Pro. What do you think? Any other fonts you'd recommend?

vasco

Arno has all the features you need.

BTW, polytonic is not limited to ancient Greek texts. Much of It was used well into the 20th Century before the reform.

ChrisL

I am sure there is a TeX setup but he may not have access to it. I wasn't getting in to style, I was just thinking Arno had a full range of Greek and sups to cover his needs. I didn't know there were any placement issues in sups with Arno. What are exactly the problematic glyphs and what should be correct for scientific work?

ChrisL

I'm not the best person to ask about scientific superscripts, but I do remember Arno well because it was just a couple weeks ago I went in and made the superscripts both smaller, and raised them up. Also put the superscripted numbers on a proportional body & kerned them. Also made sure the superscript alphas and numbers had a common "baseline."

Actually, these were the "number.super" glyphs, switched by the superiors feature. Scientific notation should be called by the Unicode index for superiors (except as I remember, superscript alphas aren't encoded? See, I told you I wasn't the best person to ask). Adobe's superiors feature doesn't switch to these, and that gives improper syntax.

Additionally, scientific superiors should have a certain relationship with both cap & l.c. letters, and lining numbers. All of these should fit well with the tops of parens & brackets, too, which isn't the case with Arno. Arno is a lovely font, but again, IMO, not for scientific work.

Adam doesn't post much on the design forum, but I'd trust his judgment, or any of the programmer types with an engineering background (which gives two strikes against me).

Edited: S/B above Chris' last post.

OK, Charles, I will let mine stay put if you will :-)

Love this edit feature which shuffles everything like an iPod!

ChrisL

You think Venetian fonts aren’t suitable for chemistry design-wise. What kind would you suggest?

Ah. Not sure. The last time I had to deal with equations as an "author" was when I took (& passed!) my math-logic prelim in 1970. As a compositor, I've set a bunch of equations since then, usually in economics.

Book interior design is all about audience, and a little bit about the author. If I'm faced with designing a book where I don't know the subject matter, I look to see what typefaces other designers have used, over a period of time. That "period of time" is the best way to avoid getting caught using a current fashion that will soon fade.

As a WAG, I doubt most chemists would find, say, Bembo a comfortable font for professional work. Something modern, but plain. In my grad student days that was Times Roman, but Times has become so much a design taboo that has probably changed.

I still remember one of my professors saying "Prelims are puberty rites," and my dissertation director saying "just get it done." Since he had taken ten years to write his on the early psychology of Agostino Nifo, I figured he was wrong. But it turned out he was right, & I never finished mine.

Moral: Steal a design from something the audience will be comfortable with, & get on with your life.

Charles,

Don't worry, thesis is already written :). Its just that I still have a couple of weeks until sending it for printing and I thought (besides the content) I could improve its design.

I'll see what I can find then.

has anyone used FF Meta or FF Meta Serif for body text in books? how do they perform?

Just to update this thread with more recommendations, here's another list of book design typefaces.

Speaking of text fonts, may I ask for an opinion (which the original poster might find useful as well)?

Nine years ago when I started self-publishing my costume how-to books (with zero funds to buy fonts) an editor friend recommended Book Antigua for body text, and I still use that for the book series, with Zapf Humanist for subtitles.

I know it's the custom here to disapprove of Windows-installed fonts, but what do you think of that choice? To me it has always looked pleasantly clean, legible and non-distracting.

If it was today I'd probably choose Minion as I now have lots of Adobe fonts, but Book Antigua still looks good, I think.

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