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geekhack Community => Other Geeky Stuff => Topic started by: noisyturtle on Fri, 04 October 2013, 17:05:33

Title: Fonts
Post by: noisyturtle on Fri, 04 October 2013, 17:05:33
What's your go-to font, and what does that say about the kind of person you are?

My go-to font is Garamond, which says I'm creative and detail oriented but don't take myself too seriously.
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: ComradeSniper on Fri, 04 October 2013, 17:08:30
Usually Arial. That probably says that I'm not very creative, which would be correct.
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: mauri on Fri, 04 October 2013, 17:18:08
comic sa-
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: hashbaz on Fri, 04 October 2013, 17:32:33
Consolas for coding.  Don't have a lot of other strong font opinions.
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: Lastpilot on Fri, 04 October 2013, 17:57:18
What's your go-to font, and what does that say about the kind of person you are?

My go-to font is Garamond, which says I'm creative and detail oriented but don't take myself too seriously.
Haha yes. To me it feels like it says "Hey guys, I'm detail-oriented. I'm slightly different than Times New Roman, but intelligent people like me can tell the difference."

My go-to font is usually Century Gothic in either the regular or bold style. To me it just says modern and simple. It's subtle like a whisper. :D
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: phetto on Fri, 04 October 2013, 17:58:31
I'm this kind of person
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: vun on Fri, 04 October 2013, 18:14:14
I don't really have a go-to font, although Helvetica Neue is good to have for making half-assed design work look slightly less half-assed. Segoe UI is my go-to font if I'm modding a windows theme  that has an annoying font, or choosing fonts in software with the option to change font.

Although Sabon is probably the closest to a go-to font as I get, it's a nice and versatile serif font.
Idk what that would say about me tho.
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: Pacifist on Fri, 04 October 2013, 18:16:50
I go for TNR
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: rowdy on Fri, 04 October 2013, 18:31:19
I swap fonts about as often as I swap keyboards.

No particular favourites, but I tend to use the latest Microsoft fonts at work (Calibri, Cambria and so on), and Ubuntu for a lot of other things.
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: inteli722 on Fri, 04 October 2013, 19:11:14
Ubuntu is my preferred Sans font, and Times New Roman is my preferred Serif font. I also like Verdana.
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: damorgue on Fri, 04 October 2013, 19:36:42
Eurostile LT is one of my favorites, but more importantly, always use an appropriate front for the context.
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: swill on Fri, 04 October 2013, 20:11:19
courier
-------
Because monospace is awesome and its the only monospace font that is EVERYWHERE.

edit
----
And it says that I spend too much time in front of an editor that I care about column alignment.
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: inteli722 on Fri, 04 October 2013, 20:24:00
courier
-------
Because monospace is awesome and its the only monospace font that is EVERYWHERE.

edit
----
And it says that I spend too much time in front of an editor that I care about column alignment.



I too like monospace. All font should be monospace. That would make the world so much happier!
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: ijprest on Fri, 04 October 2013, 20:48:09
I like Inconsolata (http://www.levien.com/type/myfonts/inconsolata.html) for code editing... but it doesn't work in Visual Studio anymore (because it uses PostScript curves, and WPF doesn't support fonts w/PS curves, and Visual Studio switched to WPF a couple versions back).  It's open-source, so I tried my hand at generating a version that used OpenType curves, but the result ended up looking terrible and had weird/incorrect metrics.

So now I use Consolas.  It's pretty decent.

For general web-browsing and computer UI, I like Segoe UI.  It's really nice.

For printed work, I *love* Computer Modern (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Modern).  Unfortunately, it was designed decades ago, and doesn't play well with modern software (with TTF/OTF versions mostly having been generated from bitmaps).  As a result, it tends to look terrible on the monitor at small-ish sizes.  But it still looks great when printed.
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: noisyturtle on Fri, 04 October 2013, 21:01:32
Ah, and Distinctive is a good one. But you can only use it selectively because it's all caps, but man it looks classy.
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: microsoft windows on Sat, 05 October 2013, 06:14:57
I LIKE TIMES NEW ROMAN AND COMIC SANS MS.
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: aj-kun on Sat, 05 October 2013, 08:34:49
Calibri
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: SpAmRaY on Sat, 05 October 2013, 08:36:12
I'm usually too lazy to switch from whatever default font. But I use Arial a lot when I do switch.
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: daerid on Sat, 05 October 2013, 12:47:28
Inconsolata or Liberation Mono, because I love writing code all day long.

Pretty much hate most serif fonts I've come across, but favorite Sans font is probably either Helvetica Neue or Segoe UI SemiLight (depending on platform). If I'm on a linux box I prefer the Liberation family.
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: xandr on Sat, 05 October 2013, 13:04:42
Inconsolata (http://www.levien.com/type/myfonts/inconsolata.html) for anything monospaced - e.g. mainly code in Sublime Text

Delicious (http://www.exljbris.com/delicious.html) for pretty much everything else
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: IvanIvanovich on Mon, 07 October 2013, 07:19:59
Segoe UI semilight, Consolas, Arial unicode, geosans light, M+2m light, Andale Sans, DejaVu mono, Myriad Pro... are probably the most used right now. I like to use lots of different fonts. I like sans fonts and prefer more modern styles.
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: davkol on Fri, 11 October 2013, 18:00:35
I'm fine with DejaVu font family most of the time, there isn't anything really bad about it, although it's a bit too wide for my tastes. I sort of like the Ubuntu font as well, but its implementation of Czech diacritic sucks a lot.

For coding/terminal, it's probably Inconsolata. I'm not too picky though... as long as the font doesn't look like Courier (ugly).

I don't have any strong preference for longer writings either. Georgia is kinda cool, and you can't go wrong with TeX's Computer Modern.

All in all, I'd say it's Inconsolata and then the boring DejaVu family.
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: rowdy on Fri, 11 October 2013, 23:11:48
Heh someone reminded me about Inconsolata, so I reinstalled it and now I use that all over the place.  It scales really well.

Nothing worse than having the top and bottom bars on E a different thickness.
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: vasouv on Sat, 12 October 2013, 02:35:56
I've been using Consolas for coding but after seeing Inconsolata here, I think I might be changing to that. Seems nice.

edit: Nope, I downloaded and it's really ugly in 14 size in NetBeans. Has to be 28 to render nicely. Well I can't use 28 size for coding :P
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: codyeatworld on Sat, 12 October 2013, 02:43:35
Been using Mozillas new typeface Fira. http://mozilla.github.io/Fira/

Its grown on me.
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: daerid on Sun, 13 October 2013, 02:53:25

Been using Mozillas new typeface Fira. http://mozilla.github.io/Fira/

Its grown on me.

Now that is a nice font right thar
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: MOZ on Sun, 13 October 2013, 03:16:53
I like square721 for titles and stuff, nice modern font.
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: amasokin on Sun, 13 October 2013, 07:08:45
Helvetica. The best classic font imo.
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: ijprest on Mon, 14 October 2013, 13:34:01
I've been using Consolas for coding but after seeing Inconsolata here, I think I might be changing to that. Seems nice.

edit: Nope, I downloaded and it's really ugly in 14 size in NetBeans. Has to be 28 to render nicely. Well I can't use 28 size for coding :P

Yeah, it sucks that Inconsolata doesn't work well in modern apps, at least on Windows.  It worked great in VS2008 and Notepad when I used it back-in-the-day.  But it looks like crap at small sizes on a modern machine with ClearType turned on.

(It looks like Inconsolata doesn't support ClearType at all... I wonder if it always looked like it does now and my standards are just higher, or if the renderer for non-ClearType fonts has become worse over time.)
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: DamienG on Mon, 14 October 2013, 13:41:44
Envy Code R for programming.

Because I made it myself :) http://damieng.com/envy-code-r

[)amien
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: oscillik on Mon, 14 October 2013, 13:58:22
Envy Code R for programming.

Because I made it myself :) http://damieng.com/envy-code-r

[)amien

I use Envy Code R for Hexchat in Windows!

thank you for making this font!

Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: DamienG on Mon, 14 October 2013, 13:59:05
I use Envy Code R for Hexchat in Windows!
thank you for making this font!
You're welcome!

[)amien
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: acantha on Mon, 14 October 2013, 14:07:03
I use Envy Code R for Hexchat in Windows!
thank you for making this font!
You're welcome!

[)amien

NICE! i used envy for quite a while, before my add kicked in and i went looking for something new.

my current terminal font, on linux, is Tewi (https://github.com/neeee/tewi-font). For mac, i currently using 9pt Source Code Pro.
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: jdcarpe on Mon, 14 October 2013, 14:28:45
I'll jump on the Consolas bandwagon. I really like it in XChat/YChat/Pchat.
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: codyeatworld on Mon, 14 October 2013, 14:46:44

Been using Mozillas new typeface Fira. http://mozilla.github.io/Fira/

Its grown on me.

Now that is a nice font right thar

 :cool:

Envy Code R for programming.

Because I made it myself :) http://damieng.com/envy-code-r

[)amien

Wow thats a clean font, so easy to read.
Really nice job! I will have to give a try right now.
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: rowdy on Mon, 14 October 2013, 16:11:07
Envy Code R for programming.

Because I made it myself :) http://damieng.com/envy-code-r

[)amien

Looks nice :)

But there is no difference between O and 0 - any chance you could put a slash through 0?

Edit: Forget that - the pic on the web site is out of date, the 0 does have a slash through it :D
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: DamienG on Mon, 14 October 2013, 16:19:52
Edit: Forget that - the pic on the web site is out of date, the 0 does have a slash through it :D
Which pic are you referring to? It's always had a slash through it... If you mean the main sample of code the 0 is slashed (it's in green) the other characters are the letter O.

[)amien
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: tipo33 on Mon, 14 October 2013, 16:30:06
Helvetica. The best classic font imo.

likewise
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: rowdy on Mon, 14 October 2013, 16:41:10
Edit: Forget that - the pic on the web site is out of date, the 0 does have a slash through it :D
Which pic are you referring to? It's always had a slash through it... If you mean the main sample of code the 0 is slashed (it's in green) the other characters are the letter O.

[)amien


Sorry, my bad, I'll post again when I've woken up and my eyes have cleared :-[
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: 127001 on Mon, 14 October 2013, 19:20:54
(http://i.imgur.com/w7MYvfY.jpg)
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: ijprest on Mon, 14 October 2013, 22:24:17
Envy Code R for programming.

Because I made it myself :) http://damieng.com/envy-code-r

[)amien

Neat.  I've been testing it out in Sublime Text for a few hours.  The relative height of uppercase & lowercase characters was pretty jarring for the first little bit, but overall it seems like a quality font.

What software do you use to make the fonts, by the way?  I've played with FontForge a bit, but it seems awfully crashy on Windows.
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: DamienG on Tue, 15 October 2013, 11:45:16
I purchased my own copy of FontLab... but it's $650.

[)amien
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: ijprest on Tue, 15 October 2013, 22:25:45
Ouch... pricey.  I wish more companies offered "non-commercial" licenses for geeks like me to get proper tools.
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: davkol on Wed, 16 October 2013, 05:06:03
Ouch... pricey.  I wish more companies offered "non-commercial" licenses for geeks like me to get proper tools.

Metafont
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: ijprest on Wed, 16 October 2013, 10:29:23
Metafont

I haven't used Metafont, though I used Metapost a bit back when I was writing technical papers with TeX.

But to generate fonts that are usable on modern systems, you'd have to rasterize and then trace, no?  That's less than ideal.  To look good at small sizes on a modern system, I think you need more control over the OpenType features than Metafont can give you.  And the Type1/TTF examples of Computer Modern I've seen have been less than inspiring.
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: DamienG on Wed, 16 October 2013, 12:01:50
If you own a Mac you use Glyphs for about half the price http://www.glyphsapp.com/ although it doesn't including hinting (less important these days anyway)

Both Glyphs and FontLab also have student pricing.

[)amien

Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: daerid on Sun, 20 October 2013, 02:19:22


Yeah, it sucks that Inconsolata doesn't work well in modern apps, at least on Windows.  It worked great in VS2008 and Notepad when I used it back-in-the-day.  But it looks like crap at small sizes on a modern machine with ClearType turned on.

(It looks like Inconsolata doesn't support ClearType at all... I wonder if it always looked like it does now and my standards are just higher, or if the renderer for non-ClearType fonts has become worse over time.)

I've had no problems with it on Windows, using the latest version from Google's font library (which has proper hinting)
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: TacticalCoder on Sun, 20 October 2013, 13:11:58
Envy Code R for programming.

Because I made it myself :)

Excellent, I didn't try your font yet but I shall. I never went as far as making my own coding font but I did modify (for my own use only) one of the Proggy fonts. It was a long time ago and I don't even remember which software I used but I did re-create several versions (.ttf and whatever format was needed for X11 / Emacs etc.) and did carefully backup my mods/files and notes "somewhere".

Interestingly back in the days I did modify Proggy's lowercase "s" and uppercase "M" to use "less pixels" and they look like the "s" and "M" in your Envy font  :)
Your envy font reminds me in some way of something but I can't really tell what: probably some old (and great!) font in whatever text/code editor on the Atari ST.

As of now I'm mostly using the Terminus font with Emacs but, damn, after reading this thread I now want to customize it!
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: ijprest on Sun, 20 October 2013, 23:32:51
Yeah, it sucks that Inconsolata doesn't work well in modern apps, at least on Windows.  It worked great in VS2008 and Notepad when I used it back-in-the-day.  But it looks like crap at small sizes on a modern machine with ClearType turned on.

(It looks like Inconsolata doesn't support ClearType at all... I wonder if it always looked like it does now and my standards are just higher, or if the renderer for non-ClearType fonts has become worse over time.)

I've had no problems with it on Windows, using the latest version from Google's font library (which has proper hinting)

Awesome! 

I was using the OTF downloaded from the creator's site (http://www.levien.com/type/myfonts/inconsolata.html), and it was anti-aliased, but not "ClearTyped".  When I first went to Google Fonts, I saw the same thing, but then I realized it was using my locally installed copy.  After uninstalling the font, the Google Fonts version was definitely ClearTyped.

So I downloaded the .woff file and ran it through a WOFF-to-TTF converter (http://everythingfonts.com/woff-to-ttf).  I've now got that TTF version installed, and it's getting ClearTyped in Sublime Text and Visual Studio!  Yay!

I think the "no-ClearType" problem (which affects other fonts as well... e.g., Adobe's Source Code Pro (http://blogs.adobe.com/typblography/2012/09/source-code-pro.html)) has something to do with the font having PostScript-outlines vs. having TrueType outlines.  Any font I've seen that uses PostScript outlines doesn't get ClearType applied.  The original Inconsolata OTF file uses PostScript outlines... the TTF that I generated from the WOFF file has TrueType outlines.
Title: Re: Fonts
Post by: Altis on Tue, 21 January 2014, 18:32:46
Envy Code R for programming.

Because I made it myself :) http://damieng.com/envy-code-r

[)amien

Sorry to dig up a slightly dated thread.

Just wanted to add a +1 for Envy Code R. I have been using it for some programming lately and it's very nice. Thank you and well done, Damien!

I've also been using Sergio UI a bit lately for some written text.

Any new favorites to add to the list?