Try Priori from Emigre. It's both a sans and a serif, though I don't know how readable it would be in a text setting.

The sans is quite nice, reminiscent of Gill Sans but more modern, and the Serif has a nice gothic look to it.

http://www.myfonts.com/Search?searchtext=priori

I think Priori is too "pushy" to be highly readable. In the Emigre library, Eidetic might work better.
What about Proforma? With Amplitude for display.

hhp

I think our new release Alfon works great as a magazine text face. Several users are implementing it in that capacity and it is working nicely. Body & Soul was recently redesigned by Hopkins Baumann in NYC and it is using Alfon as feature text and display and I think it works great. If you can find a copy on the newsstand or in the health food store you should check it out.

"I think Priori is too "pushy" to be highly readable. "

I wasn't sure. But it does have a very unique stylistic look to it that I felt would go nice with what he was asking for.

It would be interesting to see it used in a large text setting, however.

I'd certainly love to see some long text set in Priori - it's one of those borderline text faces that needs to be seen in action to know for sure. A similar case is Emigre's "Tribute": when I first saw it the "g" raised a flag, but I had to see it in actual setting to be sure that it is indeed too problematic, especially when doubled. Borderline glyphs aren't so bad when they're in a font with many of them, but when there's one single "spike" it reduces the overall utility of the font with little gain in personality/focus. In the case of Priori the "a" seems to be such a spike to me - a little too far beyond the "envelope" made by the rest of the font, especially when you consider it's such a common letter.

hhp

> Body & Soul

I just checked it out. Alfon seems to work really well - better than what your (any?) website conveys. They should really use it for the whole thing, and dump that ridiculous Johnston for text. My only complaint with Alfon's Roman is that it's a bit light (or is that from their repro?), but then I realized that the whole magazine's look is light, so it's a great fit. As for the Italic, I really like it a LOT structurally -very progressive- but I do worry that it's a bit too close to the Roman for emphasis - just a bit. Great stuff overall!

hhp

ouch 235 bucks. Is there any sort of a trial or a student version available? I am not doing this for anything commercial and therefore can't afford many typefaces on a student budget. I won't resort to stealing typefaces. does anyone know how someone in my postion can go about obtaining good faces for a very low price or better yet even free? I will hapilly buy the faces when I get out of school and start actually making money, instead of paying over 30 grand a year for education

The 'Adobe Classics for Learning' are a fabulous deal (your can order through your college bookstore), but you won't get as distinctive look as with the suggestions here. On the other hand, you can e-mail Montalbano and see...

Four font families of Alfon are $135 (Regular, Italic, Bold Bold Italic) or (Medium, Medium Italic, Heavy, Heavy Italic). Individual fonts are $45.

BTW, the current issue of M-Real magazine -the "Launch" issue- covers many interesting aspects of magazine production and promotion. It's supposed to be ~$6, but you can get it for free.

http://www.m-real.com/visualperception/

hhp

How exactly do you order the magazines? I must be overlooking something.

My friend goes to Ole miss and she's taken classes with Samir Husni, and currently works for him as well.

Go to Order/Feedback/Change_of_Address.

hhp

I found it after I posted. duh.

Can you just get that one or can you get all of them, it wasn't clear to me.

What do you all think of Eldetic Neo for the text and Fountains Ultura for headlines?

I think Eidetic might be a superb choice here. And its proportions and color seem very good for magazine setting. But Ultura would not match it - I think you'd need something more tame for the headings if your body font is so mannered - or what about Eidetic's unicase?

hhp

What is Eidetic's unicase? Im not familar with that one.. is that the same as eidetic omni? (sorry if thats a stupid question)

Yup, that's it. "Unicase" means a font that mixes UC and lc forms.
I don't usually like them, actually - at least I don't think type designers should generally spend time making them - but once they're made a type user wouldn't be at fault using them!

hhp

thanks for all the help hrant!

oh i almost forgot, I'm thinking about using a sans for the openers and picture captions. I'm thinking it should be pretty simple to contrast with the eidetic. Maybe DIN or Thesis? Any thoughts? I can't wait to start designing this thing... its going to be fun