Kevin Cullis: How to Start a Business Mac Version

Mac 19 font combinations: text and header

March 4th, 2010 5 comments

As an entrepreneur and business start-up we all begin somewhere.

I am finishing up my first book and am in the editing stages now and I am starting to consider how my book will look to others, and in this case, how my fonts will look in the book’s interior. A readability issue. How does my text look to the reader.

I found a quick link to a quick article that as a novice to fonts it broke fonts down so even I can choose between a few choices. The article 19 top fonts in 19 top combinations is a first start for those that need to buy a clue from their local graphic artist. But better yet, I’m a better informed customer to a future graphic artist now.

Here’s his list with headline first and text being second and I have indicated which ones are default loaded on the Mac (bold is a Y/Y, italic has at least one loaded font, so you can figure out which extra ones you need to buy):

Helvetica / Garamond Y/Y
Caslon / Univers N/N
Frutiger / Minion N/N
Futura / Bodoni Y/Y
Garamond / Futura Y/Y
Gill Sans / Caslon Y/N
Minion / Gill Sans N/Y
Univers / Caslon N/N
Bodoni / Futura Y/Y
Myriad / Minion N/N
Avenir / Warnock N/N
Caslon / Franklin Gothic N/N
FF Din / Baskerville N/Y
Trade Gothic / Clarendon N/N
Baskerville / Univers Y/N
Akzidenz Grotesk / Garamond N/Y
Clarendon / Trade Gothic N/N
Franklin Gothic / Baskerville N/Y
Warnock / Univers N/N

As I was going over my book I actually chose #1 above without realizing it, but I see what he means now.

But the one thing that would be helpful is if Doug actually took his comment “I could have picked Baskerville, Caslon, Garamond, or Minion, etc. (all serif typefaces) to go with Futura (a sans serif typeface)” and for us newbies he could have expanded upon this some more. Note to Doug, we just don’t have the “eye” for this stuff! If you do add to this, I’ll put your name in my upcoming book as helping me out.