Newsgroups: comp.fonts
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!batcomputer!cornell!rochester!kodak!ispd-newsserver!ism.isc.com!ico!rcd
From: rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn)
Subject: Re: What's yer fav. font combos?
Message-ID: <1991Apr24.072153.23519@ico.isc.com>
Organization: Interactive Systems Corporation, Boulder, CO
References: <1991Apr20.044900.260@mac.cc.macalstr.edu>
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 1991 07:21:53 GMT

sdbeck@mac.cc.macalstr.edu writes:
> Here's a thought: How about people post their favorite faces and face
> combinations/uses? I'd like to see what folks are doing.
...
> PS - If anyone says Times & Helvetica, I'll be VERY disappointed!

Disappointed because you don't like it, or because it's too mundane?
Times and Helvetica aren't a bad pair; neither are they great.  (Sort of
like the average American marriage--it works OK; they fight a bit but
mostly things go on in a humdrum sort of way.  They're mismatched, but not
too badly.  Not my cup of tea.:-)

One combination I've just come to like is Palatino and Optima--in the usual
combination of bold sans-serif heads and such, with serifed body text.  I
came 'round to this in an unusual way--the first time I saw it, it looked
horrid!  That was because I was looking at a newsletter which had been
intended to be in Optima throughout, but somehow one page got Palatino for
the body text.  I lambasted it at the time, but an ediscussion with Bill
Ricker softened my attitude, and later I saw a large draft MS with the
Optima-head/Palatino-body combination and liked it.  (Rather, I looked at
the MS and found the type combination pleasing, then backed up to see what
it was.)  Next step was to run some large samples of the standard faces of
the two families, set them side-by-side and have a good, long look.  They
really do harmonize more than you might think.  (Yes, I know--and have
known all along--that they have the same designer.)

Optima has become one of my favorites for a...hmm, "sans-serif" isn't
right, but it isn't serifed...well, you know what I mean (don't you?)

Speaking of Zapf, what goes with Melior?
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd@ico.isc.com -or- ico!rcd       Boulder, CO   (303)449-2870
   ...While you were reading this, Motif grew by another kilobyte.