New to Typophile? Accounts are free, and easy to set up.
Appropriate font for technical manual
I need to design a manual for a company that I work for. The subject matter is quite dry; surveying, sampling and data collecting protocol for a mining company. I am going to try to make it a bit more interesting with diagrams, and photos.
What might be a good font choice for this sort of document? I was thinking of Minion Pro, but would like to have something that has more of a modern feel..
Thanks!
User login
Support our Sponsors
14 Aug 2009 — 1:02am
Perhaps something along the lines of architectural blueprints – a rounded sans like Bryant or Gotham Rounded?
14 Aug 2009 — 2:15am
Sun or Taz from Lucas de Groot
Mikey :-)
14 Aug 2009 — 2:37am
Chevin is quite informational in appearance , but with a bit of character.
Nick Cooke
14 Aug 2009 — 3:10am
Choose a font that has a clearly different numeral 1, capital I, and lowercase l.
14 Aug 2009 — 8:43am
I've always wanted to try Mercury or Whitman for my tech pubs and new business proposals. I might also try substituting Starling for TNR and see if anyone notices.
Other fonts I've considered in this context include:
Andulka
Anziano
Arnhem
Comenia
Eudald
Farnham
Freight
Kingfisher
Laurentian
Lexicon
Merlo
Nosta
Relato
Rongel
Swift 2.0
14 Aug 2009 — 1:10pm
Hi again:
I would choose a sans for the text for vertical and horizontal compactness... however Minion is a good choice tho, but you might like Karmina too (it has a little more personality without giving up the efficiency): http://www.type-together.com/Karmina
I almost forgot—FF UNIT. This font is dead center neutral and is compact too:
http://www.fontshop.com/search/?q=unit&x=0&y=0
Mikey :-)
14 Aug 2009 — 1:55pm
could be a job for univers?
18 Aug 2009 — 2:23pm
Just took a look at FF Slab Unit I think I may try to convince the powers that be to buy that one.
19 Aug 2009 — 4:39am
I second Univers
20 Aug 2009 — 12:29pm
You might look at Kepler, by the same designer as Minion. There are many variants of weight, width and optical size, but you can get the four basic styles inexpesively as a part of Adobe Type Basis OpenType Edition.
20 Aug 2009 — 2:03pm
I have to dissent against Univers—the default choice for annual reports and manuals for eons and it has the personality of a CAT scan.
Flama accomplishes the same things, has more personality (but is still neutral) and costs significantly less... and not everyone and their grandmothers design agency uses it.
http://www.felicianotypefoundry.com/main/?page_id=10
or here
http://www.vllg.com/Feliciano/
Mikey :-)
20 Aug 2009 — 4:46pm
ha ha "personality of a CAT scan"..I will have to use that in a sentence this week!