Comments on: Friday Link Dump

by: dan hartung

Mon, 18 Apr 2005 07:57:00 +0000

Who uninstalls Arial but leaves Arial Black? WTF?

Most likely this reflects the small number of Windows 3.0 systems (or, perhaps, incomplete upgrades) still out there. Arial was not a standard font until Windows 3.1, replacing the .FON version of Helvetica.

Arial Black is there because it was a decorative font included with many versions of Office. Thus, you can have no Arial and yet have Arial Black.

Also, as far as the newspaper fonts, two of those top 10 are in use at my local paper — as Poynter reported. They consulted the Font Bureau, and I see no reason why there isn’t a “zeitgeist” of fonts. Or are you saying you disagree with the ranking?

by: Mark

Sun, 17 Apr 2005 21:17:48 +0000

The newspaper font list on Poynter is the result of a survey performed by the Ascender Corporation, a font developer in Illinois. Apparently they examined the front pages of nearly 100 newspapers and using PDF versions of the newspapaer with font information embedded.

It seems to be a legit list. No real surprises for newpaper front pages, although I think Bodoni should recieve an honorable mention.

by: joey

Sat, 16 Apr 2005 07:17:32 +0000

i thought fontleech.com was the ultimate proof of how far one can get with a good domain name?

by: Stephen

Sat, 16 Apr 2005 07:07:03 +0000

I love the footer:

This site, its creator, and web host claim no legal responsbility.

How convenient.

by: Stephen

Sat, 16 Apr 2005 07:05:19 +0000

goodfonts.org is lame. It shows how far one can get with a good domain name. But it’s worse than that - it’s the type of archive that gives new designers a false sense of a good font’s value. As Vad says, most of the stuff are knockoffs or blatant copies. Use those fonts and your work will show it.

by: Laura

Fri, 15 Apr 2005 20:18:20 +0000

I’ll second Andrew Dupont on Poynter’s reputation. As far as the Poynter list goes … I worked with four of those typefaces at my last newspaper job. *shrug*

by: Andrew Dupont

Fri, 15 Apr 2005 19:53:27 +0000

Though I do wish they’d said how they collected that data, I do agree that the list of popular newspaper fonts is completely believable. In addition to being a typography dork, I was a designer at my college newspaper, and we had brief flirtations with several of these fonts. Also, Poynter is very well-respected when it comes to journalism research, so I trust their methods.

by: Vad Solmrof

Fri, 15 Apr 2005 18:43:15 +0000

Be warned.: The GoodFonts site contains various bootlegged, illegal copies of commercial typefaces.. ( If I were you I would remove the link as soon as possible.. )

by: Wes Rand

Fri, 15 Apr 2005 18:38:31 +0000

I can believe that the newspaper list is true. I see those same fonts all over various newspapers with only the occasional unique choices.