A common question that is asked is: "I'm a student (or new designer) and I need a good collection of fonts to get me started. What do you recommend?"
The short answer to this question is there is no real defined answer. There are many factors that need to be considered such as the market you will be working in, what kind of systems you have in place and of course, what is your budget.
In a publication by FontShop.de (yes, its in German - but you can still see the font names and list easily) it listed the following as the Top 10 fonts of all time:
- Helvetica
- Garamond
- Frutiger
- Bodoni
- Futura
- Times
- Akzidenz Grotesk
- ITC Officiana
- Gill Sans
- Univers
My personal recommendation
If I was starting out a career in design today I would start out with 6 complete font sets and gradually build a collection over time. I would make sure that the 6 font sets I selected were usable for both print and web work and we fonts that can have a wide scope of usage. I would also purchase OpenType fonts where possible. When selecting your essential font sets, remember you can always get special 'one-off' use fonts from free sites like dafont.com when you need them, so make sure you have a solid collection of these essential workhorse fonts. I recommend getting 2 serif, 3 sans-serif and 1 calligraphic (scripted) font set to ensure you have some variety.
My Essential 6 Font Sets
- Helvetica Neue (sans-serif)
- Adobe Garamond Pro (serif)
- ITC Cheltenham Std (serif)
- Eurostyle LT Std (sans-serif)
- Futura (sans-serif)
- Snell Roundhand (calligraphic)
Your personal preferences to fonts may be different, and you might prefer FF Din over Eurostyle LT or Warnock Pro over Adobe Garamond Pro, but that is the beauty of design.
Fonts For Students
We all know life as a student can lead you to cutting corners financially just to get by. So, if your on a tight budget, here are some free fonts that you can use to get your collection started.
- Fontin Sans (sans-serif) http://www.josbuivenga.demon.nl/
- Bitstream Vera Sans (sans-serif) http://www.dafont.com/bitstream-vera-sans.font
- Gentium (serif) http://www.dafont.com/gentium.font
- Pigiarniq (sans-serif) http://www.tiro.com/syllabics/resources/index.html
- Lido STF (serif) http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/storm/lido-stf/
- Exmouth (calligraphic) http://www.dafont.com/exmouth.font
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