Trained monkeys do it

No I'm not about to break into song, but wish to note that in recent experiments trained monkeys were able to correctly identify Helvetica 90% of the time. Arial, however, was a different story.

Just kidding. The part about Arial is my attempt at a joke, the rest is true. The typographers amongst us, no doubt, are doubled over in laughter.

I wish I was. A typography nut that is, not a Helvetica discerning monkey. My first thoughts in a creative project is shapes and colors. Font lovers in putting their best foot forward, put font first on the design page. It's an evolutionary step up from where I am in design.

Greg, who does my factsheets, choose the Chocolate font for headers. Chocolate's elegant lines bulges and contracts making each letter seem floating yet rooted together to make the word. The word takes on the appearance of a phrase. Chocolate makes you stop and read, and Chocolate achieves all this while being very readable.

Not being so font adventuresome, my work shows Arial, Trebuchet MS, or Comic Sans - when I'm at my wackiest. I fear going overboard. Fontfanatics do go overboard sometimes putting font first where an image would better do the job.

When done right, collateral pulling the reader in by mere use of word and font is a true marketing masterpiece. You control the message, you've enticed the viewer to stop, breathe and read. It's a compliment to work well done.

You'd think I'd now show you a sample type masterfully delivering a marketing message. Instead I choose to an example of 'font gone wild.' The font is called 'game'. Makes me want to meet the designer.

Ilovetypography a favorite website is unapologetically devoted to type. I love to go there but leave often feeling overwhelmed. So many fonts, yet I still choose Arial, Trebuchet MS and Comic Sans.

Have you ever saw a font that you wanted to use but didn't know the name? The advanced search at Fonts.com has a 'search by sight' function which asks you a series of questions e.g. 'what type of tail does the upper-case 'Q' have?'. The search function then shows you images and you pick which image is most like the 'Q' in the font you're trying to find. At the end of the questions, Fonts.com shows you potential matches. Well done!