Song Stylin’: Epilogue
So, what do I think of the fonts?
First was Trebuchet. This is what I’m currently using for slides, because it’s not particularly homely and it is quite readable. That and it’s one of the few choices on the sanctuary computers.
Second is Georgia. Wonderful font. It looks good and it’s very readable. It was designed as a screen font, so it’s prime for lyrics display. Also available on sanctuary computers.
Third is Gill Sans. This one might not be available, I have to check. Gill Sans is also known as the British Helvetica. It’s used all over Britain and can be found used by the BBC and the London Underground. Quite classy.
Then we have Arial. Many of you know that I loathe Arial. Arial was designed as an alternative to the most popular typeface of the day, Helvetica. Because Monotype didn’t want to seem like Helvetica copiers, they took an existing font of theirs, Grotesque, and redrew it so its weight and proportions were the same as Helvetica’s. The result is a font that looks exactly the same as Helvetica except for a few really minor deviations. Arial is otherwise known as the badly made derivative of Helvetica.
Following that, we have Lucida Grande, best known as the Mac OS X system font. Readable and nice looking with enough hinting and antialiasing. Not available for our use, but Lucida Sans is a close next of kin.
Times New Roman is not a bad font, it’s just not made for this kind of usage. I’ve always found that whenever it was used it’s not as easy to read. I find the bold version kinda ugly, actually.
Number seven is my choice, Myriad Pro. You may have seen it around, as it’s kind of Apple’s brand font now. It is a beautiful typeface, made for print, but works quite well at large sizes on screen too. Unfortunately, it costs about $30 USD, or if you get it in the Adobe Opentype Collections, it’s $99 USD for 65 fonts, or 400 for the academic edition.
Garamond Pro suffers from the same flaws as Times New Roman: not made for the screen, but beautiful on print.
Verdana was designed as a screen font and for legibility at really small sizes. Remember back in the 90′s when it was the craze to use miniscule sizes for Verdana and how no one complained because it was still legible? Verdana is a good font, especially when used in tandem with Georgia (in fact, they were designed by the same guy). However, Verdana turns kinda clunky when printed or when it’s in a really large size (like for lyrics display).
Helvetica is a wonderful font. Legible, popular, good looking. Problem is, it’s not available, and if it were, I would hack the computers to replace Arial with it so fast.
Comic Sans is a joke. Anyone caught typing in it will get their hands chopped off.
So what’s with all of this type talk? Well, I was kinda sorta wondering whether or not our church should invest in some fine fonts. It would be one of those Adobe Opentype Collection dealies, since there’s no way our church can spend hundreds on Adobe Type 1 fonts.
But, it could be worthwhile for our printed material and for the Powerpointing. Right now, there’s a whole lotta Arial and it bugs me to no end. If we can afford to even think about investing in Photoshop (which I shot down quickly), then I think that a few good fonts are quite affordable and not completely insane.
I think the problem will be selling the idea of buying fonts. I mean, no one buys fonts, you can download ‘em for free off the Intarweb. There was a time when I too thought it would be ludicrous for someone to spend $300 on one font family. After doing some self education, I’ve learned what kind of work gets put into design.
Anyway, with this trend of creating more print materials and VCDs and promotional stuff as well as making it really professional, I can see the benefits for the CAT Ministry in an affordable, quality type package.
I think quality fonts are one of those little things that no one overtly notices, but subconciously, it shouts “professional quality.” Think about it. Your hypothetical children could make and print something in Arial, but it takes skill to carefully choose the right font for the right job.