My favourite typefaces (April 2024)

[NOTE: For the most up-to-date version of my favourites list, see my ‘Typography’ page.]

I’d compiled this list for myself and figured I might as well share it online, so…

It’s April 2024 and, out of the typefaces I currently have a licence for, these my favourites and the ones that I use most often.

Sans serif

A graphic titled ‘Sans serif’ with three columns of typefaces under the headings ‘used frequently’, ‘used infrequently’, and ‘used when needed’.

Used frequently in documents, presentations, and graphics: Whitney (Wikipedia), Whitney Narrow, Fact (MyFonts), Ideal Sans, Avenir Next LT (Microsoft, Wikipedia), Source Sans 3 (GitHub, Wikipedia)

Used infrequently for specific purposes (eg headings, graphics, presentations) and for specific applications (eg Verdana for email): Verdana (Microsoft, Wikipedia), Public Sans (GitHub, Wikipedia), Fira Sans (GitHub, Wikipedia), DIN Next (Wikipedia)

Used when needed for specific purposes (eg presentations, graphics): General Sans, Neue Haas Unica (Wikipedia), Neue Haas Grotesk (Microsoft, MyFonts, Wikipedia), Inter (Story, GitHub, Wikipedia), Jost* (Wikipedia), Cooper Hewitt, URW Dock, Libre Franklin (Wikipedia), Trade Gothic Next (Wikipedia), Gill Sans Nova (Microsoft, Wikipedia)

Serif

A graphic titled ‘Serif’ with three columns of typefaces under the headings ‘used frequently’, ‘used infrequently’, and ‘used when needed’.

Used frequently in documents, presentations, and graphics: Mercury, Source Serif 4 (Wikipedia, GitHub), Charter (ITC Charter), TT Jenevers (MyFonts), Stempel Garamond LT (Wikipedia)

Used infrequently for specific purposes (eg printed documents): Crimson Pro (GitHub), Vollkorn (Story), Sabon Next LT (Microsoft, Wikipedia)

Used when needed for specific purposes (eg presentations, graphics): Malabar, Alegreya, PT Astra Serif, Gentium Plus

Monospace, slab serif, reading, website

A graphic with four columns of typefaces under the headings ‘monospace’, ‘slab serif’, ‘reading’, and ‘website’.

Monospace used for coding (JetBrains Mono), note taking (Berkeley Mono), writing, and graphics: JetBrains Mono (GitHub), Berkeley Mono, Drafting* Mono, Fira Mono (GitHub, Wikipedia), Source Code Pro (GitHub), Cascadia Code (Wikipedia, Microsoft)

Slab serif used mostly for headings and graphics: Sentinel, Bitter (GitHub), Zilla Slab (Wikipedia, GitHub), Klinic Slab, Tisa Offc Serif (Microsoft, MyFonts)

Typefaces used for reading on devices (eg Bookerly on Kindle), websites (eg Whitney on NewsBlur), and apps (eg Vollkorn in Aquile Reader): Literata (Wikipedia, GitHub), Bookerly (Wikipedia), Whitney, Vollkorn (Story)

Typefaces used on websites (eg Chaparral and Myriad Condensed on this website): Chaparral, Myriad (Wikipedia), Myriad Condensed, Noto Serif (Wikipedia, Story, GitHub), Noto Sans (Wikipedia, Story, GitHub), Merriweather (GitHub), Oswald

Commentary

Don’t worry, I’m not going to explain why these are my favourite typefaces! That would be tedious and self indulgent of me. I just wanted to document this list somewhere.

I’m always on the lookout for more typefaces to explore and try, by the way. So what are your favourites? I’d love to know!

Album cover feels

I took a photo that looked like an album cover, so…I made one.

High contrast, sepia photo of people wearing dark, warm clothes walking in a diagonal line through a walkway under a train line. The photo has been cropped and made to look like an album cover with the band name ‘below ground’ printed in large, all-caps text along the bottom. In the top left corner, in slightly opaque bright yellow text, is the album title ‘Volume IV’.

“But what about the three previous albums”, you ask?

Well, this is where it all started…

Photo of a harshly lit underpass, tweaked till the photo is very high contrast black and orange. The photo has been made to look like an album cover for a band named ‘Below Ground’ – which is written in large, all capital letters along the bottom of the image. The album is titled ‘Volume 1’.

Then there was the difficult sophomore album…

Photo of a tunnel with (apparently) colourful panels placed across its curved ceiling. The photo has been desaturated to a pale blue tint and had been made to look like an album cover. Along the bottom of the image, in all capital letters, is the band’s name: ‘Below Ground’. In the top left corner is the album title: ‘2’.

Followed by a critically acclaimed and welcome change in direction by the third album…

Photo of train tracks entering a train station through a tunnel with a large pedestrian crossing on top of it. The photo has been made to look like an album cover, with the band’s name ‘Below Ground’ printed in all-caps at the bottom of the image. In the top left corner is the lowercase letter i repeated three times, which are the Roman numerals for the number three deliberately written incorrectly. That is the title of this album.

Also, these look better when you put them together in a grid :)

So no surprises there

The Australian federal election has been called for 21 May 2022.

As a result, ABC have launched the 2022 version of their Vote Compass, which is “a tool developed by political scientists to help you explore how your views align with those of the election candidates”.

No surprises on where I fall along that spectrum.

Screenshot titled “Vote Compass” and “Australia 2022 Federal Election”. Below that there are two visuals.

One is a grid chart titled “How you fit in the political landscape”. The horizontal axis of this chart shows whether you’re on the economic left or right; the vertical axis shows whether you’re socially conservative or progressive. In the economic right and socially conservative corner is a marker for the Liberal-National Coalition (LNP). Close to the exact middle is a marker for the Australian Labor Party (ALP). In the economic left and socially progressive corner is a marker for the Australian Greens (GRN). In the top left quadrant (economically left and socially progression) is a marker that shows where I stand. This is located between the Greens and the ALP, but much closer to the Greens.

The second visual is a bar chart titled “How much agree with the parties” and it shows that I agree 90% with the Australian Greens, 60% with the Australian Labor Party, and 33% with the Liberal-National Coalition.

Picking a typeface for writing code

Do you have a favourite typeface for writing code? (Assuming you write code, of course.)

If not, CodingFont is a brilliant website that will help you find your preferred coding typeface — tournament style!

The process is simple and elegant: you compare code written in two popular coding typefaces side-by-side, then you pick the one you prefer. Do this over and over again and, through the process of elimination, you’re left with the coding typeface you like the most.

In my case that’s JetBrains Mono. (Though I’m also happy to code in both Fira Code and Source Code Pro.)

I love typography and have literally spent days pouring over typefaces, comparing them closely, and then picking the ones I want to use in different scenarios. Like this comparison I did when I wanted to select a typeface for all the charts and diagrams I post on this blog:

Which is why all my charts and diagrams are now in Fira Sans or Ideal Sans. (Where they used to be in DIN Next or Open Sans.)

CodingFont lets you do this type of side-by-side comparison without any of the hassle. So, if you’re a coder – or even someone who regularly uses monospaced fonts – then this is totally worth a try.

Have fun!

Weekend project: Fire Safety Door album covers

The tram stopped at an intersection and my eyes focused on the side of a multi-storey office building. The plain, grey door blended in easily with the plain, grey wall. The door had no handle and was flush with the wall. If you weren’t looking carefully, you wouldn’t even notice it was there. 

The only thing mildly interesting about it was the black lettering about a third of the way down. Helvetica Condensed Bold. All-caps. Three lines. 

FIRE SAFETY DOOR
DO NOT OBSTRUCT
DO NOT KEEP OPEN

“Huh,” I thought to myself, “Fire Safety Door. That’d fun name for a band. Their first two albums could even be called ‘Do Not Obstruct’ and ‘Do Not Keep Open’”. 

This was on a Friday evening on my way home from work and I realized it’d been a while since I’d done something randomly creative like designing album covers for a fake band. So I was, like, “Why not?”

Thus I present to you the six-album discography of the alt-rock bank Fire Safety Door (click to see higher resolution versions of the album covers): 

The albums in chronological order are: 

  • Do Not Obstruct: Debut album. 
  • Do Not Keep Open: Difficult second album. 
  • Door Is Alarmed: Critically acclaimed third album. 
  • Woop Woop: Live tour album. 
  • Evacuation Assembly Point: Concept album. 
  • The Spaghetti Incident: Album of cover songs. (Yes, the original GnR album was correctly called “The Spaghetti Incident?” – complete with quotation marks. This album title is just an homage.) 

Ah, random creative outlets. They're so much fun :) 

 

Tablet PCs – Comparing Specs, Keyboards

Now that I’ve narrowed my tablet PC options down to three –  though I may add to this list over the next few months – I can start comparing them to each other.

My current options are:

Basic Specifications

Their basic specifications are similar. Though, as you can see in the summary below, the ThinkPad X200 edges the other two out slightly:

Item Lenovo
ThinkPad X200		 HP
EliteBook 2730p		 Fujitsu
LifeBook T2020
Processor Core 2 Duo
1.86GHz L9400		 Core 2 Duo
1.86GHz L9400		 Core 2 Duo
1.2GHz U9300
RAM 3GB 3GB 2GB
Hard drive 160GB,
7200RPM		 120GB,
5400RPM		 120GB,
5400RPM
Graphics GMA X4500 GMA 4500MHD GMA 4500
Screen 12.1" WXGA 12.1" WXGA 12.1" WXGA
Digitizer Active,
multi-touch,
in/outdoor		 Active,
anti-glare		 Active,
in/outdoor
PCMark05 4,318 3,489 2,983
3DMark05 1,307 1,278 802
Input Trackpoint Trackpoint,
trackpad		 Trackpoint

 

All of these specs were taken from Tablet PC Review, by the way, and they’re based on the specs of review units. You can, of course, customize these specs when you actually by the computer.

Comparing Keyboards

Moving beyond that, the next thing I always check on a laptop is its keyboard. This is because I do a lot of typing and constantly use keyboard shortcuts so having a great keyboard is crucial to both my productivity and sanity.

As a benchmark, this is what the Toshiba Satellite M750’s keyboard looks like (all photos from TabletPCReview.com):

Toshiba Portege M700 keyboard

Note the Control key in the bottom left hand corner. This is good because most keyboard shortcuts involve pressing that key and it irritates me when the Function key is in the left most one in the bottom row.

Also note the convenient location of the Page-Up and Page-Down keys next to the directional arrow keys on the bottom right hand corner.

The Home, End, Insert, and Delete keys on the top right hand corner aren’t at their optimal positions, I know, but their relative ordering isn’t terrible. Ultimately, that not-so-good location was the sacrifice I was willing to make in order to get this laptop.

Finally, the laptop uses a track pad (as opposed to a track point), which is something I like and am accustomed to.

Let’s now look at the Lenovo ThinkPad X200’s keyboard:

Lenovo ThinkPad X200 keyboard

A number of things stand out. First, the Function key is at the bottom left hand corner. That’s not good, but survivable. On the other hand, even though they’re located on the top right hand corner, the placement of the Insert, Delete, Home, End, Page-Up, and Page-Down keys is beautiful!

That said, the one big adjustment I’d have to make if I got this tablet PC is switching from a trackpad to a trackpoint.

Next, let’s check out the HP EliteBook 2730p’s keyboard:

HP EliteBook 2730p keyboard

I like this one because its Control key is in the right place and it has both a track pad and track point. On the other hand, I hate this one because it’s Insert, Delete, etc. keys are very unfortunately placed.

Finally, here’s the Fujitsu LifeBook T2020’s keyboard:

Fujitsu LifeBook T2020 keyboard

The Control key is in the right place and the Page-Up and Page-Down keys are good, too. The Insert, Delete, etc. keys are survivable but we’re back to a track point instead of a track pad.

So, overall, my least favourite keyboard is that of HP 2730p. I really don’t like that they’ve placed the Home, End, etc. keys in a line on the top right hand corner. The Fujitsu T2020 and Toshiba M750’s keyboards, meanwhile, are both okay and I’d be fine with using them.

The keyboard that stands out, then, is that of the Lenovo X200. Yes, I’d have to use a track stick and, yes, I’d have to get used to the new placement of the Control key…but I did manage to get used to the latter on my previous keyboard so it won’t be the end of the world. On the other hand, I love how the Home, End, etc. keys are placed and this makes up for most of its other shortcomings.

Preliminary Conclusion

So my preliminary choice of tablet PC is the Lenovo ThinkPad X200. The added benefit of this is that the X200 is the only one with a multi-touch screen.

There is more to explore and examine – like cost, for example – but I’d say this was a good start.

A Quick Aside About Lenovo Design

By the way, Lenovo are generally praised for their excellent keyboards and, having used them on and off in the past, I tend to agree.

If you want to know more about Lenovo’s design ideas, be sure to check out their Design Matters blog.

Good posts to read are: