I, too, have found Minion to be a very useable typeface. It's relatively
elegant looking and very readable at all sizes. As you point out, it comes
in a variety of faces which adds to its versatility. I also like Caslon but,
like you, haven't tried it for lyrics. Something for both of us to
investigate.
George
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark D Lew" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, February 26, 2007 12:26 PM
Subject: SPAM LOW: Re: [Finale] Fonts
On Feb 26, 2007, at 5:50 AM, Brennon Bortz wrote:
Recently, someone mentioned resorting to using Times as a lyric font.
I'd like to ask what other fonts people typically use for lyrics, text
boxes, text expressions, etc. Is there something close to "standard."
If it would be better to reply off-list, please feel free to do so.
Times is probably fairly close to a standard. Certainly nothing else is
more standard. Since I'm among those who have disparaged Times New
Roman, perhaps it would help if I elaborate a bit.
I suppose I have to start with the difference between a typeface and a
font. A typeface is a design style; it indicates the shape of all the
characters, regardless of how they are drawn. A font is a specific
rendering of that typeface into a tool that you can use for printing. In
the old days the typeface was designed by an artist who drew out the
characters, and the font was pressed into lead. Each printer would have
his own font, though later they came to be mass- produced and thus
essentially identical. Nowadays the font is a digital rendering. There
can be many fonts for the same typeface, and indeed for all the most
common typefaces there are.
My objections to Times New Roman is an objection to the font, not the
typeface. It's simply not very well designed. This is most noticeable in
the measure of spacing between letters. Any time you have "rt" for
example, they will run together, which is bad for both aesthetics and
readability. In many applications you'd have the option of kerning them
apart, but you can't do that in Finale (not in lyrics anyway). Times New
Roman is popular because it is ubiquitous and free. There are many Times
fonts that are better implemented than TNR, but you have to pay for them.
Most people don't bother. They've got TNR for free, and so does everyone
else who might open the document: why bother spending money just to
become incompatible? It's like the QWERTY keyboard.
My objection to the Times typeface as a lyric font is milder. I don't
dislike Times generally. I think it's not the best choice for lyrics
mostly because it doesn't have a large x height. For lyrics you want to
have as much readability as you can get for the space you take up, and
horizontal space is more crucial than vertical space. Therefore, two
features which will help you is large x-height (the ratio of lowercase
height to uppercase height) and narrower characters (ie, lower ratio of
width to height). In both cases you don't necessarily want to go too
extreme, but I think you want to be on the good side of average.
Times's x-height is not excessively small, but it's not particularly
large either. I actually use Times most of the time in spite of this flaw
(mostly because clients are comfortable with it), just as I sometimes use
Palatino in spite of it not being particularly narrow. For my own casual
stuff, I experiment more. Lately I've been using Minion, a relatively
new Adobe font, very well-designed with readability primary in mind. It
also has a nice condensed version which is narrower than normal but not
so narrow as to look unduly skinny. A possible drawback is that Minion
has a modern and slightly cold look to it, which might be an aesthetic
drawback for some styles of music.
Newer typefaces tend to have larger x-height than the classics. (The
proprietary typeface designed for the Economist magazine has an
especially large one, for example.) Older fonts tend to have smaller
x-heights (eg, most of the many varieties of Garamond). I think it would
be worth exploring the classics to look for one whose x-height isn't too
small. Adobe's standard package includes a Caslon face that I think fits
that description. I think that would probably be an excellent lyric
choice, though I've never tried it. (But come to think of it, perhaps I
will....)
I don't even consider sans-serif fonts for lyrics. To my eye it's just
ugly and unprofessional looking. On average, sans-serifs are less
readable than serifs, but that's not a 100% rule. There are some very
readable sans-serif faces, and anyway readability is dependent on
context, not an absolute quality.
mdl
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