i like fonts.

as you've probably gathered, i'm a bit of a font nerd. i think part of it stems from my early designing days. i wasn't really good enough to design intricate, complex layouts like some people i know, so the tiny building blocks of design were front and center for me. i could grasp typography. i could explain why the italic ampersand in garamond looks so damn cool.

my friend mack recently sent me a poll on slate.com of writers responding to this question: what is your favorite font, and why.

surprisingly (to me, at least), a lot of people went with courier. the rationale is that they use it every day in manuscripts. a couple went with staples like times new roman and palatino, and one courageous soul named hoefler text as the best font of all the fonts.

i recently queried the brain trust on which fonts they liked most. here's what the people who actually replied had to say:

Katie Tanner (friend, former co-worker): I've been using Tahoma a lot as a sans serif. I liked Gill Sans and Hoefler Text. Specifically, I love the swirly font Jose uses for mini review bylines in Paste: Hoefler Text-Swash italic.

Katie Davis (friend, former co-worker and pirate): didot italic. (i know, shocker.) i like its architecture, and its subtle serifs. and it made an omelet for me one time. with cheese and bell peppers. and bacon. and class.

Becky Snowden (friend, former co-worker, animal whisperer): Selfish and Porcelain but now it's EVERYWHERE... well porcelain is. It really depends on what it's for. LOVE cochin. Dang there's a font I'm really loving but it's on my comp at work...

Marilyn Cole (friend, computer science goddess): I really like plain ol' monospace these days. I'm always in terminal mode, with white text on black screen, and you need one of those for
coding. I do remember being a kid and seeing things like Courier and
thinking, why would anyone pick such an overtly ugly font?

Monospace is sweet, though. I also like Computer Modern, which is the
LaTeX font that Knuth (a computer science god) designed with vector
math.

And back when I was less dorky (?) I liked Garamond best for serif, and
Verdana best without.

Thorough enough analysis for your taste? I could go on.

Brandon Reynolds (friend, former roommate, owner of a fatass cat): Brandon:arial

me: mmk

why?

1:47 AM Brandon: i think it has many uses

it looks good at any size

me: that's what she said!

hioooo

as for me, i'm a fan of the futura family and bodoni lately, if only because those are two of the nicer fonts available to me at work.

least favorite font? comic sans, a hundred times comic sans. make the madness stop.

what are your favorite fonts? (and karen, i bet i can guess your's.)