If you’ve tried and failed to pick a font yourself, or you just feel lazy, you’ve come to the right place.
One caveat. Fonts are only one ingredient of typography. And good fonts are neither necessary nor sufficient for good typography. It’s possible to do excellent typography with system fonts; it’s also possible to do awful typography with great fonts.
I recognize that in large organizations—big law firms, government—individual lawyers usually don’t have the power to just pick their own font and use it. And adopting a font across an organization is like adopting any other software—a complicated and expensive project. If that’s your situation, ignore this page. There’s still plenty you can do to improve typography without ever reaching for the font menu.
For everyone else:
Good fonts
What makes a font suitable for legal writing? I like fonts that seem “at home” in a legal document—clean, authoritative, but not humdrum or self-consciously offbeat. I also look for fonts that have noncontroversial italic and bold styles, because lawyers use those frequently. Of course, I also want to be able to get small caps. In no special order:
Sabon is my preferred font for court filings and research memos. Sabon was released in 1967 as a general-purpose text font. It’s been around a while and has a traditional look, but it’s not wildly overexposed. The italic characters are wider than in most italic fonts, making it a bit easier to read. Font sample.
Stempel Garamond is my preferred font for correspondence. Stempel Garamond is based on some of the same French historical models as Sabon, but it’s a little more quirky and organic. Whereas Sabon has a slightly more rigid, authoritative feel. Font sample.
Lyon Text, however, has started to displace Sabon and Stempel Garamond in my affections. Dutch designer Kai Bernau created Lyon a few years ago as a student project. It’s based on some of the same historical models as Sabon and Stempel Garamond. Lyon projects a confidence unusual for a debut design. The New York Times Magazine uses it for body text. Font sample.
Miller. Among typographers, saying that Matthew Carter is your favorite font designer is like saying that Radiohead is your favorite band. Who will argue with you? The guy can do no wrong. Carter’s font Miller is based on historical Scottish designs, and has a sharp look popular in newsmagazines. It’s used throughout New York magazine, my favorite periodical. Font sample.
Minion is a font I respect more than I admire. If it were a car, it would be a Lexus. Technically speaking, it’s a very well-made typeface and widely used for text. It’s very clean and handsome. Personally, I find it a touch antiseptic and prefer text fonts with a little more flavor. But if you like it, great. Font sample.
Adobe Caslon is based on the 18th-century designs of British font designer William Caslon, though to me it looks more British-by-way-of-Palo-Alto. But, even if it’s lost some of its colonial-era flavor, it’s still a very well-made font, neatly balanced between modern and traditional. It’s the font used for most text in the New Yorker. Font sample.
Mercury Text is a contemporary text font by Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones. Mercury was designed for newspapers but has also found a home in magazines, including the Atlantic. Font sample.
Proof that you can make do with system fonts when you have to:
Goudy Old Style is one of those fonts that you think will go away at any moment but just keeps proving its staying power. Goudy Old Style is the text font used by Harper’s Magazine and other publications that want to look intelligent in an Ivy-League, NPR kind of way. If you’re hostile to that look, move along. Font sample.
Baskerville is based on the 18th-century designs of British typographer John Baskerville. Baskerville was a contemporary of Caslon but his work had a more modern flair. (Well, modern for the 1700s. The definitive contemporary take on Baskerville’s designs is Zuzana Licko’s font Mrs. Eaves.) To me, the version of Baskerville that ships with the Mac is a little too quaint-looking to be generally useful. But in a pinch, it’ll do. Font sample.
Commenters are welcome to nominate other fonts for inclusion in this list.
Bad fonts
Bodoni. Even people who don’t know much about fonts often know the name Bodoni. But you shouldn’t use Bodoni. The characters have very high contrast and they’re not appealing to read when laserprinted at normal text sizes. Bodoni is often used at large sizes on the covers of fashion magazines. That’s a good place for you to admire it. Font sample.
Bookman. Many computers have some version of Bookman lurking around. Don’t use Bookman unless you want your brief to look like it was printed during the Ford administration. If fonts were clothing, this would be the corduroy suit. Font sample.
Sans serif fonts. Sans serif is not a specific font but a large category of fonts that don’t have serifs. Serifs are the little “feet” that protrude from the ends of characters in text fonts. Helvetica and Gill Sans are common sans serif fonts. Sans serif fonts look less traditional than serif fonts and most people—me included—find them tiring to read in long documents. (That’s why so few books, newspapers and magazines use sans serif fonts for body text.) Even if your local court rules allow you to use a sans serif font, I don’t recommend it. Font sample. (P.S. Sans serif fonts are also harder to OCR accurately.)
If you want to use a sans serif font for a limited purpose (headings, business card, etc.) I’m fine with it. Good choices include Gill Sans, Franklin Gothic, Syntax, Frutiger, Scala Sans, Amplitude, Verlag, Mr. Eaves.
The restrictions on system fonts and monospaced fonts are still in force.
A testimonial from a reader:
I’d been using Times Roman as default font for years. At your site’s suggestion I began using Goudy a couple months ago. (I think that’s the only one of your favorites that comes with my computer.) At first I thought it looked more elegant but otherwise was no big deal. Over time, I’ve become psychologically dependent on it. Somehow it puts me more at ease. Now when Times Roman comes up I want to retch. It’s like the aesthetic difference between a Mac and a PC.
Feel the magic for yourself.
I’ve sometimes wondered if it would be a good idea to use Courier for older judges, because then the pleadings would look like they used to look in the “good old days.” Just a thought.
Your Arno link goes to the Minion web page on Adobe.com.
Love the site, by the way. These are the same things I’ve been telling clients for years.
New Century Schoolbook is a nice font, and it has the added benefit of the US Supreme Court’s imprimatur—all briefs filed at the Supreme Court are required to be in a version of Century Schoolbook (as of last year, I believe).
I printed out all your samples and discovered that I love minion! I’ve already written some documents with it and am amazed at how professionally awesome my documents look. Thanks so much!
Do you know Gentium?
I had not heard of Gentium, though I have now printed samples. Gentium is a free download, so you have nothing to lose.
There are no small caps available, so I would disqualify it on technical grounds.
As a design, the low contrast between thick & thin strokes makes it pretty and delicate. I prefer text fonts that are a bit more muscular and sturdy because they work better at small sizes on a laser printer. The small sizes of Gentium that I printed looked bland, because the subtle features had disappeared. (That wouldn’t be a problem for someone using high-res typesetting, but it’s a problem for an office user.)
Also, the italic is too similar in color and shape to the roman. An italic style not only has to be legible on its own merits, but also has to contrast with the roman (because it’s commonly used to set off words in roman text).
I would use it for a book of poetry, not for a legal brief.
Adobe Garamond, for me.
Thanks for the good work. Bookmarked it, so I can refer others.
Agreed, Adobe Garamond is a very attractive, elegant text font. To me, it has a lighter color on the page than other Garamond-type designs so it can look a little pale and washed-out on a laserprinter (thus I prefer Sabon and Stempel Garamond). For those curious, here’s a sample pleading in Adobe Garamond.
I really enjoyed reading this article, especially your personal remarks about each typeface, and checking out your samples.
How about Baskerville?
P.S. btw, you’ve set your article titles on this site in Candara without any fallback (h2 {font-family:Candara;}), so me being on Mac see it displayed in Times New Roman, which doesn’t go well with the rest of the style on this site.
Baskerville is not bad. I find it a little soft and sleepy-looking. The italic is very narrow. The fine serifs don’t reproduce well on laserprinters. However, there are many fonts based on the historic Baskerville design—you link to the ITC Baskerville, which is probably not the best version (though I have no experience with the others and can’t recommend one).
What are your thoughts on Cambria and Constantia?
They’re better than most operating system fonts on Windows but they still suffer from the same basic problem of being optimized for screen display and hence looking clunky when printed. I like Cambria a lot for on-screen text. (This website is set in Cambria.) But no, I don’t recommend them for printed work.
What do you think of Mercury from Hoefler?
Calibri and Cambria a both worthwhile fonts now available in Vista. As for OS X I think Garamond and Helvetica Neue are installed my default and you can hardly argue against them.
Great site by the way.
What font would you recommend for lengthy contracts?
Re Mercury: I’m talking to Jonathan Hoefler about including that here, once I get some technical questions resolved.
Re Calibri & Cambria: I already argued against them.
Re contracts: Any of the fonts above would work. The main problem in long contracts is undisciplined drafting — fix this and the typographic problems are pretty simple to solve. But contract drafting is well outside the scope of this website.
I use Adobe Caslon for most everything. It is my letterhead, and I use it for the text of letters. It is on my business cards. And I use it for briefs and pleadings (when permitted by court rules).
It has become somewhat of a trademark for me.
Good suggestion, I’ll add it to the list.
I use Book Antiqua for a specific type of amicus brief, principally because it is distinctive enough to be distinguished at one glance from Times New Roman. I am dissatified with how single-space block quotes look–the drops interfere with the words immediately below–though it looks fine in double-space. Any suggestions for a replacement?
To fix this problem, consult the entry on line spacing. No need to change your font if you’re otherwise happy with it.
As an alternative to the Stempel Garamond, I like the Adobe Garamond Pro family. I also like the Adobe Caslon Pro, but it’s not as extensive as the Garamond Pro family.
Also, I now only use Open Type fonts.
What do you think of New Century Schoolbook?
I’m enjoying this website very much, I have found it at minimalsites.com . Last week I decided to buy Chaparral Pro to use on my texts, but I’m not quite sure it is a good option. I find it beautiful, but not too comfortable to read. Sabon is one of my all-time favorites, maybe I should use it instead.
The 7th Circuit also prefers the Bookman series.
Great website, I agree.
This is fun to experiment — honestly I had never changed the default before. My windows/vista (whatever) system doesn’t seem to have very many of the reccs (such as Sabon or Adobe Carlson) available. But am trying out Calisto MT and Clarendon..any opinion? I am rather liking Calisto MT so far…
I like your suggestion of Minion. It does look a bit antiseptic, but at least it’s more modern-looking than Courier.
I’ve always liked Garamond as a way to not use Times New Roman all the time - in fact, my resume is in Garamond. However, when I saw your example of a pleading all done in Garamond, I have to admit, my gut reaction was that I was staring at the dinner menu at the Four Seasons. Then again, that might not be such a bad thing if I can get the judge to think that way too…
Be careful — many fonts have “Garamond” in the name but they may look quite different from each other. Claude Garamond was a French font designer of the 1500s and many modern fonts inspired by his work carry his name (not that he can do anything about it). Some are quite nice; some are not.
I’m still but a Law student. However, it’s good to see that I’m not alone in believing typography is important even for lawyers.
I adopted Bembo as my default typeface for everything I write that will be printed, and Avenir + Baskerville for headers (Avenir is a sans-serif that works very well for titles, and I prefer Baskerville to Bembo for bold subheaders). The combination works well for me, and I’ve imposed it on all students who use my law/case-law compilations and lecture notes.
Pity I have to change the typeface every time I have to send a Word document, though. I love PDFs for this reason.
Dude! Your Wessex typeface is incredible, it is definitely better than a lot of these fonts here. You should set your legal documents in it
Great discussion.
I send lots of (Word) documents to other parties (such as other lawyers) who display and (often) edit them on their machines.
What happens if they don’t have the typeface installed - (a) on their screen and (b) on the document they send back to me?
That’s a situation where you’d probably want to use an operating system font.
Is there a font you recommend that is good for both print and online PDF readability? I’m designing an instructional ebook and can’t seem to find a font that reads well both online (if they don’t feel like printing) and in print (if they do).
I have read most of your site with some interest. But I have come to the conclusion that this is just one more fashion worry that I can do without in my life. I will remain happily ignorant that my font choice betrays me as a boor.
I’ve been thinking and applying for a few years now everything you write. Thanks for confirming there’s nothing strange about thoughtful typography and style!
Maybe I’ve missed it, but I can’t see anywhere that you announce the font you use on your site. Is it Stempel Garamond? The closest I have on MS Word for Mac seems to be Garamond. (Pity that Blogger doesn’t allow for a wide range of fonts!)
This website is displayed in whatever font your browser has (It uses Cambria if you have it installed.) The font on the home page is Arno.
Bear in mind that there are many different fonts with “Garamond” in the name and they vary widely in appearance and quality. The built-in Garamond on the Mac doesn’t look anything like Stempel Garamond.
I hate to be the bad guy here, but have to ask this question. Which of your recommended fonts use the least ink? Combined with efforts to bring courts into the electronic age, and under extreme pressure from massive budget cuts, I’ve heard justices on Maine’s Supreme Court actually ask that question. And although I respect the purity of design, my dismay at the amount of paper that law practice generates and, more often than not, wastes has left me also looking for more environmentally friendly options.
All that said, I’m so glad to have found this website. Thank you for this great resource!
Perhaps in the face of budget cuts, America’s courts will (finally) adopt electronic filing to avoid the massive waste of toner and paper that traditional filing entails.
Failing that, perhaps they will mandate duplex (two-sided) printing on papers filed or served (which would immediately save nearly 50% of the paper used).
While some text fonts take up less space (and hence less paper and toner) than others, there aren’t any fonts (except for extremely condensed ones) that result in a substantial savings.
What do you think about the Century Schoolbook family? As you know, the USSC prints their case in this font, and requires it in the briefs submitted to them. Some “font critics” say it is a good font for legal pleadings because it focuses the reader’s attention well on the content, and it subconsciously makes the reader (lawyers and judges) think you’re smart because your document looks like it was written by the Nation’s highest court. To me, it looks fairly boring.
If I had to use an operating system font for a project, it would be New Century Schoolbook. It’s not bad. But if I had a choice — and I usually do — I’d go with something else.
I advocate for good typography on this website but of course there’s a limit to the benefits — nowhere do I suggest that you can hypnotize judges with fonts. Bullshit set in New Century Schoolbook is still bullshit. Nobody is going to imagine that it might have sprung from the pen of Justice Breyer.
(Also, most lawyers in America haven’t read a USSC decision since law school, so the signifying power of Century Schoolbook is limited at best.)
Ultimately, one of the pleasures of picking a font for your writing is the sense that it suits you in some way. So if you think Century Schoolbook looks “boring”, that’s a great reason to avoid it.
Phenomenal site. I’m going to buy a new font right now.
A suggestion. You might want to change your permalinks to the more descriptive version to gain more SEO traction. Like /6-2/09/why-is-typography-important-to-lawyers. Your blog platform should allow you to do this automatically.
Richard Vetstein, Esq.
http://www.massrealestatelawblog.com
Ok, I’ve got a few questions, and, as a person under 30 (being ostensible computer-savy), I’m ashamed to ask them. Let’s suppose I create a court filing using a non-Operating System Font; I convert it into a PDF file; and I then submit it to the court via an electronic filing system (CM/ECF). Will the receiving court recognize the non-Operatinig System Font? If not, will an Operating System Font be substituted for the non-Operating System Font? If so, which one? And if an Operating System Font is indeed substituted for a non-Operating System Font, what’s the point of using a non-Operating System Font in the first instance? If there’s a way to guaranty that the receiving party will recognize whatever font I use, please do share!!
When you create a PDF, the PDF preserves all your formatting just as if you had sent the document to the printer. (Longtime users of the PDF format will recall, without nostalgia, that this was not always true.) So when you upload the document to CM/ECF, it will display accurately on other systems with the fonts you chose, even if those fonts are not installed there.
One caveat. Your CM/ECF local rules may require that you email a PDF and Word or WordPerfect file to the judge’s chambers for certain filing events (e.g. a proposed order). In that case, I would recommend using an operating system font—plain vanilla Times New Roman is the safest bet—so that the PDF and Word / WordPerfect files look as identical as possible when they arrive at the judge’s inbox.
I really like Thesis and highly recommend it. It’s a very large type family with many useful variants (i.e., serif, sans serif, proportional-width, fixed-width, and light to black weights) appropriate for text and display settings.
For extended text settings, TheSerif is my preferred font. It is handsomely drawn with low contrast and isn’t at all fatiguing on the eyes. It is well spaced and has even color in text blocks. It is slightly condensed and has a large x-height, so it sets economically. It’s slab serif, so there are no delicate features to worry about when printing to a laser printer. I think that I usually use TheSerif Light for text. TheSans makes a useful companion for subheads and captions.
What about Perpetua? I’m also a fan of Adobe Garamond.
This site has been helpful for me to be more careful and precise in my legal writing. Some of these tips really add help add polish to one’s work.
Perpetua: a good-looking font but generally too quirky for long blocks of text, and not really suited for legal documents in particular.
Adobe Garamond: no objections. (Trivia: it’s the font used in all US editions of the Harry Potter novels.)
Any suggestions for fonts for use in tables? I find that I prefer san serif fonts in tables, especially at font sizes smaller than 12-point. That said, I would love to hear your thoughts! Thanks.
Your suggestions on typeface are great. I noticed that both Sabon and Stempel Garamond are slightly less condensed than Adobe Garamond Pro, resulting in about two extra lines of text per page. That is about one page of text for a brief limited to 15 pages. I also like the height and shape of the numbers in Sabon as opposed to Stempel Garamond.
What do you think about Garamond Premier Pro? I like it a little bit more than Adobe Garamond.
Also, I am curious to know how you like to set up your headings in pleadings. I can’t stand my firm’s default practice of using all caps/bold/underlined/left-justified for level one, bold/underlined for level two, and bold/underlined for level three, etc. It seems excessive to bold & underline & all caps together.
Great site. I’m one of those people who is always looking for little upgrades to make my documents better (and keep things fresh) (I’m an appellate lawyer). However, it seems I’m stuck with MS Word Times NR, because more and more courts are either taking e-filing, or requiring e-copies instead of paper. Thus, more and more judges are reading on the screen, and never see the paper. And, in my “paperless” office, I scan everything that comes in or goes out (.pdf), and so when I read my files it’s on the screen, rarely in paper, with 200dpi resolution. Do you have any better suggestions? Thank you.
Can you clarify the connection between e-filing and Times New Roman? I e-file PDF documents all the time that are not in Times New Roman.
You inspired me to spend several happy hours this evening on Linotype.com and MyFonts. Birka Roman has captured my fancy; Minion is close behind, but I like Birka’s slightly more pronounced, lower “swoops” on its y’s and j’s. Do you perceive any drawbacks to its use?
Warm thanks for sharing your expertise! I’ve bookmarked the site and look forward to spending more time on these pages.
Sure. when I e-file documents, often I am required to file proposed orders in Word format, so that the judge can modify the proposed order (maybe even grant it!). So, the motion/brief/other document will be in PDF, but the proposed order will be in Times NR, which is likely what the judge will use to modify it.
Also, because the judge will be reading the document on his monitor, I need a font that looks good not only in paper form, but also on the screen. Because the court of appeals requires e-copies, the judges will not review paper, but rather will pull the document down from the server. So, whether in PDF or Word, the font I use must look good on the screen as well as on paper, and must be one the judge will have. I think that no judge will even look at a paper document within a couple of years. Does this help?
Thanks.
Agreed on proposed orders. I also file them in Times New Roman for the same reason — so the PDF and Word file look the same.
But for briefs filed in PDF, there’s no need to use Times New Roman. PDF will preserve the formatting of your document (including the fonts) even if the person on the other end doesn’t have them installed. As for on-screen legibility, all the Acrobat products use their own internal text rendering engine which optimizes text for screens. If it looks good on your screen in PDF, it will look good (and the same) on the judge’s screen.
I’ve not used Birka. From a quick glance, it looks like a Garamond-ish text face. Probably OK to use, though it looks slightly light in color — I’d wonder whether it would appear a bit pale and brittle and smaller sizes. But, give it a try — if you like it, that’s what matters.
SARAH MCDANIEL: Take a loot at Ecofont — a font that uses up to 20% less ink.
http://www.ecofont.eu/look_at_ecofont_en.html
Love the site. I’m curious as to your thoughts on the Liberation Fonts released by Red Hat. They’re based off of Ascender Sans and Ascender Serif, and are designed to be the same width as TNR, Arial, and Courier. I find Liberation Serif to be superior to TNR for both on-screen and print use, and because they were released under the GPL with an embedding exception, they are completely free to use. http://fedorahosted.org/liberation-fonts/
Having worked at Red Hat, I’m loath to criticize. Suffice it to say that these fonts fill a practical need (a GPL-licensed font family), not an aesthetic need. Given that you can buy a classic text font family for about $100, I don’t think the Liberation fonts are that much of a bargain. But if you like them, go ape.
My search led me to the ITC Stone family. It’s not the prettiest or most graceful typeface I saw, but it seems to me to be high on legibility, and the extended family solves the problem of what to use as companion faces for headings and the like. I also understand it was designed for low-resolution laser printing, so it strikes me as something that should survive trips through the fax, copier, and scanner. Thank you for the inspiration!
Oh, and it came down to either ITC Stone or Trump Mediaeval, but I went with Stone because of the availability of the other typefaces in the family.
I just filed a brief in an interesting appellate case in Arizona and took your advice, tried various fonts and settled on Sabon. It looks great, it is more readable and it complies with the 14 pt rule. Just wanted to say thanks for your site.
Matthew: great site. Do you have any specific thoughts on Adobe Garamond Premier Pro, as compared to Adobe Garamond and Stempel Garamond.
Adobe Garamond Premier Pro is an extended version of the standard Adobe Garamond. Same basic design, more variations and options. But the “Premier Pro” version is overkill for most lawyers. If you don’t understand the differences, you don’t need them.
Stempel Garamond is based on the same historical models as Adobe Garamond, but is a bit more rugged and dark on the page, as opposed to Adobe Garamond, which is smoother and lighter. See my comment of 9/18/08, above.
Many thanks for the reply, Matthew. Based on your comments, I did some more research, and plumped for Premier Pro in the end - the 4 optical points do really make a difference, I think, and (as you mention) I much prefer the smoother, lighter finish.
(I should add that I am an academic, and not a practising lawyer, so much of your advice I have adapted and tweaked insofar as the two professions differ.)
What do you think of Goudy’s Italian Old Style?
Goudy designed many nice text fonts. However, I find Italian Old Style a little too quirky and quaint to be suitable for legal documents. Unless you’re a lawyer in renaissance-era Venice.
How about Bitstream’s Iowan Old Style?
Wonderful site! I’ve chosen Hoefler Text for my appellate briefs and Plantagenet Cherokee for letters. The Hoefler definitely stands out from the crowd of briefs but still is easy to read, I believe.
I use Colonna MT for my letterhead font.
We have Office 2007 with its dozens of fonts, but Sabon isn’t one of them and neither are your other top preferred fonts. We’re a non-profit law firm so we’re not buying any additional software. We might be able to persuade our IT people to let us download something if it’s free.
What do you recommend for pleadings (most of what we do) from the Word 2007 menu? Are there free fonts out there you can recommend?
First, let me second one of the commenters’ mentions of Iowan Old Style, which has a very broad character set (true small caps, optional old style figures, fractions, etc.) and may be worth a look: http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/bitstream/iowan-old-style/.
Second, with all the mentions of Sumner Stone’s fonts, don’t overlook Cycles, which was designed for setting books and ought to do well with briefs: http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/stone/cycles/.
Finally, people who are looking for high quality freeware fonts might want to investigate the TeX-Gyre series, which are collections of the traditional “LaserWriter” font families that have been expanded through the addition of many additional glyphs (including true small caps). The collection was originally designed for users of the “TeX” typesetting system (which is ubiquitous in the scientific community but largely unknown outside it), but the developers have also made all the fonts available in OpenType format suitable for use on both Windows and Mac. http://www.gust.org.pl/projects/e-foundry/tex-gyre/.
What are your thoughts on Adobe Warnock? It’s highly elegant, but I’ve wondered if it’s a bit too modern looking or flashy.
To catch up on my font responses:
Iowan Old Style: a very lovely font family by John Downer, a nice guy and an extremely talented lettering artist. I approve.
Plantagenet Cherokee: you could do worse, but you could do better too. Plantagenet is basically a poor man’s Baskerville; you would do better to seek that out.
Colonna MT: This is a goofy font. And you know how I feel about goofy fonts.
Nonprofit law firm: You can afford to have IT people, but you can’t afford a font family? I’m not persuaded. That said, I generally recommend against using fonts you can download for free on the internet, because as a rule, they’re not very good. (Especially when you consider that you can get some of the most famous fonts of the last hundred years for $25-35 per style.) If you only want to use what’s on your computer, try New Century Schoolbook.
Cycles: I haven’t used it but it looks perfectly acceptable. Note that Cycles comes in numbered styles that are optimized for various sizes. For office use I would probably go with Cycles Nine, because I’d expect it to stand up to the rigors of laserprinting better than Cycles Eleven.
TeX-Gyre: These are just clones of well-worn operating system fonts, and for that reason I can’t recommend them.
Adobe Warnock: For me it’s too modern and flashy. I wouldn’t use it for text. For lawyers, I think it would be better as a stationery or business card font. But that’s my personal taste. If you like it, use it.
I’ve read your warning, but if you had to use a sans serif font for correspondence, what would it be? Is there an acceptable system font?
My favorite sans serif fonts for text are Franklin Gothic, Syntax and Scala Sans.
Can anyone tell me which font the Seventh Circuit uses in its printed opinions?
PJ,
I just downloaded a 7th Circuit opinion and opened it in Acrobat. Looks like they might be using PalatinoLT for the body text.
Fabulous site! I’m a novice to typography with a question about what to expect when purchasing a font. If I purchase a font from, say, linotype.com (as opposed to a font family), am I purchasing a font that includes italics, bold, and small caps variants? Or is that what I get from a font family? Is it customary across font vendors to receive or not receive variants of a font?
Font vendors will usually give you a choice between buying individual styles (such as regular, italic, bold, etc.) and a family (which packages together multiple styles, usually at a discount to the per-style price).
But there isn’t a standard set of styles included in a family. So you may need to review the available options and see what you need.
The core set of styles I recommend is regular, italic, bold, bold italic, and regular small caps. Sometimes you see italic small caps and bold small caps — personally I don’t ever use those, so I don’t buy them. Usually you can find the first four styles (regular, italic, bold, bold italic) bundled together as a family. Then you can buy the small caps as an add-on.
Yes, the Seventh Circuit uses Palatino for its opinions. Not my favorite, but the Seventh Circuit makes up for it with good line spacing, font size and margins (2″ all around!)
This site is great, I think need to read more of it and I’m not a lawyer at all.
Thanks for writing it.
What are your views on Computer Modern?
Donald Knuth has made many eminent contributions to digital typography, but Computer Modern is not one of them. If you’re doing mathematical or scientific typesetting, I won’t object. But for lawyers or for any other general-purpose typesetting, forget it. Computer Modern is to font design what your mom is to haircuts: the intentions are good but the results are not up to pro standards.
Matthew, have you seen the new Google Font Directory?
http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2010/05/introducing-google-font-api-google-font.html
I, and I’m sure some of your other readers, would love to hear your thoughts on the suitability of any of these fonts for a law office, particularly since they’re free.
The Google Font Directory is primarily aimed at web developers who want to embed fonts in web pages. I like that Google is getting into the web font market — not because I expect great things from Google as a typographic tastemaker, but because their arrival will likely spur font companies to do more to make their own fonts available for web use.
That said, the library is currently pretty small, the quality is mediocre to low, and the fonts don’t come with all the styles that a law office needs (roman, italic, bold, bold italic, small caps). The most developed family is Droid, which I can’t recommend because it’s an operating system font with the usual limitations.
I’ll keep an eye on the Google Font Directory, but for now, law offices can safely ignore it.
I’m curious to know what your font recommendations would be for electronic briefs. Our state appellate courts (Texas) are moving toward PDF briefs with the expectation that judges and staff will work with the documents in that form.
You have highlighted the subtle differences between fonts optimized for paper and fonts optimized for the screen. Which fonts optimized for the screen would suit your taste?
For the common fonts, are we safe falling back to system-packaged versions of those fonts on the idea that they are optimized for the screen? Or do we still need to seek out professional versions of these fonts?
Adobe Acrobat uses its own technology for drawing type on the screen (called Cooltype) that does a better job preserving font design details than the Cleartype technology built into Windows. Meaning, even fonts not specifically optimized for the screen still look good on the screen in Acrobat.
So when I file an electronic brief, I still use my favorite fonts optimized for print, on the idea that a) Acrobat will do a good job drawing the document on screen and b) if someone prints it, it will also look good. (In the Central District of California, where I practice, electronic filing is mandatory, but you also have to send a printed copy of every filed document to the judge’s chambers.)
Important: generate your PDFs directly by using a PDF printer (either the Adobe PDF print driver or equivalent). Don’t print your document to a laserprinter and then scan it to PDF — this results in gargantuan files that look bad on screen and printed. The worst of both worlds.
You’ve got a great resource here.
I read through the recommendations and tried them all out. I really like Goudy Old Style (handy, because it’s standard on my work PC and my home Mac). Looks great in print and on PDFs. However, I’ve noticed that the standard lettering (i.e. not bold) tends to look washed out on screen unless zoomed to 130% or more. Is it just me? It’s mildly annoying, but not enough to make me avoid the font generally.
Minion is very legible and has small caps and old style figures as well as multiple weights and non-standard characters. The semi-bold is better than the bold weight in my opinion—with enough contrast with the regular weight to standout when typesetting subheads. I think Minion works better in longer line lengths than Times Roman or Century Schoolbook and it holds up when printed on low resolution laser or ink jet printers. It was designed by Robert Slimbach and release by Adobe in 1990.
What happened to Arno? Is it no longer a favorite?
In experimenting in typesetting my dissertation (in LaTex), I’ve been really taken in by Adobe Warnock because its “light” typeface looks really nice when printed out. However, I agree that it is too flashy. Those capital Ws are just too much.
As per the earlier (now gone?) recommendation, I took Arno for a spin. I love it! It has a great authority (especially when used in footnotes), but I can’t help think it looks too heavy on the page and feels tiring on the eyes after a while. It does have a “light” setting, but it is only for display text, and so seems too condensed when scaled down.
So are you aware of something coupling that authority of Arno with the light readability of Warnock? Or am I asking for the impossible?
Finally, thanks for putting this website together. It is fantastic, even for us non-lawyers who just want some simple typesetting advice.
Minion is the lighter, more authoritative older sibling of Arno.
How do you feel about the Andron family designed by Andreas Stötzner?
(http://www.signographie.de/cms/front_content.php?idart=69&changelang=2)
I haven’t used Andron, though it looks to me mostly like a revival of the classic book font Bembo, which I like very much.
Many fonts get revived (and re-revived) over time. Sometimes the revivals fix flaws in the originals or add new features. That’s good. (For instance, Palatino Nova is a huge improvement over the Palatino system font.) Sometimes the revivals toss out what’s good about the original without replacing it with new material. That’s bad.
So if given the choice to use the original or the revival, I will prefer the original unless there’s a compelling reason to use the revival. The mere fact that Andron is newer than Bembo does not make it better than Bembo.