I once met a lawyer who had actually set his letterhead in a font called Stencil:
What was his target clientele? Army-surplus stores? He explained that he wanted something distinctive.
Distinctive is fine. Goofy is not. Novelty fonts, script fonts, handwriting fonts, circus fonts — these have no place in any document created by a lawyer. Save it for your next career as a designer of breakfast-cereal boxes.
There are some pretty fine levels of distinction available on this topic. Many of them are lost on me, but not this one. Thanks for putting this site together.
I submit that the word “Will,” centered at the top of a will, looks best in Bitstream Engravers Old English. It just works.
The fact that you’ve just splashed Steven Coltrane’s name across a blog read by, say, a few hundred people defeats your point.
Coltrane used the strange font as a branding exercise. You remembered his brand and have in fact promoted it.
The lawyers who followed your advce and stuck to good ‘old Times New Roman continue toiling in obscurity.
All names have been changed to protect the guilty.
And I’m pretty sure this was not the kind of attention “Mr. Coltrane” was seeking.