Typophile

Help needed in choosing a suitable face for junk mail poetry

ampersand8

Hello I am currently studying typography at LCC and have been stumped by the following:

I am currently designing a small poetry book containing all my strange junk mail (example below). As I receive this via e-mail I would like the face to somehow reflect that, but I would like this book set out in a classic poetry book style. I would prefer to use a serif font, any advice or comments on this would be great.

So far I have stuck to my usual faces such as Garamond, Minion, Bembo etc... all of which do not carry the ’technological’ aspect....? I’m stuck!

Example text..
“Mitch wagner stumble, elizabeth judge spooner.
Bea oracle join sponsor ee jason westradigg month ejb.
Half limited bott student standard, items suggestion? Nod obstacles overcome, xanother emulates, columnist rizzo, eweek.
Chairman gates early aspect finishing.
Bogged gone bugbears cripple msmvp, sandi hardmeier. Deals, inbox, unable ask appreciate effort wheres stufftrack recent!
Reiser, namesys ntfsg jatt, isms gsmutils, gsmlib?
Trust surfing friends family performing document creation. Continuity planning chicagos sized radio deal face breaches spur. Likewise similar anonymous having no identity client, why so?
Deutsch mxico espaa kingdom centerhelp, placesmsdn mappopular.
Changed acronym backronym authentic energetic reflective cleaner pleasing thumbnails. Ieee hlp considers prohibits roughly divided varying cater submarkets! Hugos pragmatic agility ledford, gear joyce carpenter.”

Thanks in advance for any help!
Claire

‹ lowercase logo - how to represent it in normal text... kerning ›
ampersand8

Well i am now down to Chaparral, Kepler, Minion, Electra.

I have read that Electra is particulary suitable to poetry... however I am drawn to Kepler and Minion as they are cut by Robert Slimbach who cut my favourite version of Garamond (Adobe)... oh!

thanks, any help would be great.
Claire

Ken Messenger

Why choose? If any project screamed out for a ransom note approach it’s this one.

Tiffany Wardle

Kepler is a beautiful typeface and very underused. Understated too. Could be very nice for poetry.

Electra is a gorgeous little typeface and Dwiggins holds a special place in my heart. But, it is overused. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t use it, but that it has been done and it might be a more worthy challenge to use Kepler. Especially if you have the optical version. Do you?

ampersand8

I’m not sure which version I have to be honest... It has around 130 different versions... I have laid all faces out VERY roughly so I don’t want to shock you with their lack of leading etc at the moment... but Kepler and Electra are the winners (minion is doing well, however chaparral looks awful, too heavy). I may try a few more tests, see how far I can push them... Ill keep you posted.

Thanks!

Chris Lozos

I think SPAM poetry needs to be in a screen font. A bitmap font.

ChrisL

ampersand8

i regards to
’I think SPAM poetry needs to be in a screen font. A bitmap font.’

I see what you mean, but this book is to be presented as a regular poetry book until you look closer at the actual poems...

I think using a bitmap font would detract from the words of the poetry... thanks tho!

Zach

I think monospaced fonts suggest computers (and hence email).

I’m guessing you don’t want to use Courier, but perhaps there is something else suitible? (Etelka comes in monospace, and here are some more)

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