Re: Fonts

[billtroop@xxxxxxxx]

De Groot's Thesis family is considered gold standard in much of Europe; it
has sold thousands of copies which is a very great deal for an expensive
typeface family. Unless you absolutely require a monospace font, I would
stick with the Sans and the Mix. Some of his fonts have very highly optimized
hinting for the screen most particularly in the TT versions. I forget which
ones but you can easily email him and find out if you consider that important
(I don't and would always use the Postscript versions for any number of
reasons). A functional, contemporary sans of this quality has not
subsequently appeared, so Thesis is still pretty much it for a stylish, non-
gimmicky contemporary font family. If you want a chicometer reading, I would
say that Thesis is still, about ten years after its release, as fashionable
today as Univers was in the 50s and Helvetica in the 60s. Using it is an
instant declaration of taste and contemporaneousness.

Lucas has always been considered a great technician, but but I believe the
data have been slightly revised over the years as Lucas has gained even more
more expertise. Thus, if purchasing, I would make sure to get the latest
versions. The only sans nearly as widely used by stylemakers is Spiekermann's
Meta family.

By the way, I have heard nothing from Bitstream as of yet, but as soon as I
do . . . . speaking of which, there is an interesting and undervalued
Bitstream sans family by Dennis Pasternak called Chianti. And if you only
want a sans family, and are interested in maximum readability of long text,
Kuester's influential Today Sans Serif, from Scangraphic, is considered very
fine. Gerhard Unger's Argus, a sans version of WAD Dwigginis's Electra, is
also one of the finest sans serif designs of the past twenty or so years.
> Has anyone tried Luc de Groot's fonts, in particular Sans, Sans Mono
> Office, Mix or Mix Mono Office? Thank you. http://www.lucasfonts.com/.
>
> michael.norman@xxxxxxxx
>