Poppl Laudatio.
http://www.bertholdtypes.com/bq_library/90089.html
http://www.bertholdtypes.com/bq_library/90090.html

I've been using it since '94 for a lot of my rendered on-screen text, and it's fabulous. As a bonus, at large sizes it contains a lot of visual interest, maintaining stylistic consistency with the small text.

----

If you need to make very small legible text, Rotis (specifically the darkest weight of the Sans - which you might actually try to add a fake bold to as well) is in a class of its own (maybe surprisingly so), not least thanks to its economical narrowness. http://www.themicrofoundry.com/other/rotis_12.gif


hhp

As we saw elsewhere in the forums, Emigre's Filosophia (and I would add Emigre's Mrs Eaves) works very well for rendered screen text. From the same sample, Avenir (from Adobe, et al) works well also.

I've also used Stempel Schneidler with some success.

I haven't tried it as such, but with its crisp, open forms I would also investigate FB's Hightower as well.

David

Jacob, you've just reminded me of something: for fine-tuning a rendering to be *just* right (assuming you're really really picky), there's nothing as good as a multiple-master font (and MyriadMM is certainly a great choice, although it's extremely common).

David: I think "body text" rules out tiny x-heights, considering this is for the screen.

hhp

Here are some samples,
created quickly in Photoshop;
one in Greyscale mode with Anti-Aliasing ON,
and one in Bitmap mode with Anti-Aliasing OFF.

Might be worth looking at Dalton Maag's InterFace

( http://www.daltonmaag.com/retail/interface/index.live )

David

Not that I agree with everything there, but:
http://www.will-harris.com/typoscrn.htm

hhp

David, I took the liberty of splicing your anti-aliased sample (keeping my two favorites) and adding a couple of my own examples:
\image

hhp

hhp

Laudatio and Rotis both have low contrast, which helps. Also, the former has a huge x-height (which is great as long as the text is both small and short), while the latter has a narrowness which can often save the day. Laudatio (and Avenir) might benefit from some extra tracking.

David, could you please put up a 13/14 of Avenir? I'm getting a good feeling about it.

hhp

How about aligning these left so we can get a
good idea of space usage? Right now I'm an
Avenir man.

Stephen

Stempel Schneildler works better when it is tracked out a bit -- and spelled correctly. 'Doh!

Here's a waterfall setting of Avenir Roman:



David

> Stempel Schneildler

OK... Now it's just getting embarassing.... :D

Stempel Schneidler

I will write it on the chalkboard 100 times.... ;)

David

I think the 13-point Avenir is great, although marc's right about the generic feel. A bigger problem might be the smallish x-height, plus I think it's too modular (a la Futura) for good readability. But it's clean and balanced, which I think makes it a very good choice overall.

hhp

Myriad is sweet

Avenir is a very versatile font, but quite common and in my humble opinion a bit boring.
Elsewhere at this forum someone mentioned ITC's Conduit which also at small format works surprisingly well.

Don't know... If you tried all the verdanas and arials choose Trebuchet as sans-serif or Georgia as an alternative of Courier.
If you don't like this fonts, use gifs or ask Microsoft to embed other fonts with I.E. (but I think they don't care...)

Good luck!

Greg