Novel Pro – Novel Sans Pro

Centro Serif / Centro Sans

as a beginning.

–?

Garaldes with italic small caps and regular/semibold weight are, among others, Lyon and Pona,
MVB Verdigris has no semibold, but does have italic small caps. It is a rather dark text font though.

As for the Sans, any humanistic Sans would work. Nick Shinn's Sensibility, Stella, Mundo, PF Centro Sans, Depot New. As well the Office 2007 bundled Clear Type fonts Corbel and Calibri are part of the humanistic "Frutiger-alike" genre. New and interesting is the stressed Ideal Sans.

Be aware that I am a layman too and this is not an expert opinion.

Thanks for the replies. I hope it was not my question that crashed the Typophile database... >;->

I really do like Novel, thanks for the hint. However, I haven't managed to find a PDF specimen to test it in print... :-(

Lyon and Pona also look nice. Much better to my eyes than the average "corporate" typefaces that I have found so far.

For the sans, imho the point is to find one that matches color and metrics of the serif as far as possible, and this in both weights (regular, semibold) and shapes (upright, italic). And without the possibility to actually test the combination myself... :-/

Sincerely,

Wolfgang

P.S.: You didn't advertise Andron because you don't want it to get abused by amateurs with office printers, I guess? ;->

However, I haven't managed to find a PDF specimen to test it in print

Try asking the designer: http://www.burodunst.com/contact/

You didn't advertise Andron because you don't want it to get abused by amateurs

Cheers!
I didn’t recomend Andron because it has no Sans counterpart. Though there are good sans faces to match.

Herzliche Grüße nach *)* Halle.

I like Calluna and Calluna Sans, but that might not be your cup of tea.

Apparently, Andron doesn't have italic small caps anyway. Why I need these? For acronyms/abbreviations (I have L-O-A-D-S of these in my documents) in blocks of italics text, such as quoted text, margin notes, etc.

The fact that Andron doesn't have a sans that's made specifically for it wouldn't matter to me, I'm not looking exclusively for purpose-made "superfamilies". Sabon and Syntax were made by different designers, yet as far as I understand they seem to be generally considered as The Reference for documents like the ones that I mostly write.

And it doesn't have to be typefaces that were released recently. For example, if you know of a nice matching sans for Albertina... Would Today work? I picked these two from the "Schriftwechsel" book, and Albertina also from the "Textism" web site. I have no clue how they would work for my kind of application, however, especially with office printers.

I have also come across Epic and Organic (from Typetrust) by chance. What do you think about them? Epic looks to me essentially like "a better Garamond than Garamond".

Calluna looks a bit too idiosyncratic to me with that asymmetric "twist" in the connection between the lower serifs and the stems.

And Centro looks a bit too "slabby" for my taste.

So, if you know of more such "hidden gems" like
- Novel,
- Lyon (matching sans?),
- Pona (Orenga is beautiful - does it pair up with Pona?)
keep them coming! :-)

As for the sans; I do like Stella, Mundo, Depot New a lot, thanks for those.

Und Grüße in das Land wo die krossen Chicas auf den Palmen wachsen. ;-)

Andron doesn't have italic small caps

This is the very first request of it in ten years, as a matter of fact.
May be it happens, some day.

Epic seems to be more a reinterpretation of Sabon, with new italics, than any other Garamond-type. This is interesting, as somehow Epic seems to be more close to Sabon than the revival of Sabon Next. In any case I am not qualified to assess the quality of how the typeface is crafted (outlines, spacing, kerning, etc...).

As well it seems to me that Epic is different than other typefaces (and Sabon) in the size and position of the German Umlaut dots in comparison to the i dot. I mention it as it seems like we share the same mother tongue.

All in all it seems to me a useable typeface.

Something else that fits your criteria is FF Celeste, which has a serif, small-text (serif) and a sans face. Celeste takes more inspiration of the modern era. It is a good text face though and very suitable. It does not need to be a Garalde. (EDIT: I just saw you mentioned Celeste in your original post. You said though that you did not find a matching serif you liked. That means you did realize that there are Freight and Celeste serif versions, but you did not like them, right? Just in case you did not notice.)

Did you try to ask the designers of the serif typefaces, which fitting sans they recommend?

As well there is no real agreement on how to pair typefaces. I think it was Hrant here in this forum who said once that one should not aim for all too similar metrics and x-height. You can find more advise on pairing here: Typophile threads on pairing

Hoftype might be a foundry that has a product for you. Erato is described as a contemporary approach to dutch/french renaissance type and Impara is a sans from the same foundry that seems to fit well.

Italic small caps and 6 respectively 10 weights.

Well, for me as a clueless layman, Sabon is just a Garamond with a different name. ;-)

Yes, I know about Celeste (serif), but for my taste it has too much contrast. Too "vertical". Freight is even further away (too "modern") from what I'm looking for.

For pairing, I guess that matching the color is the most difficult, especially since I can't test the typefaces in question.

And thanks for Hoftype. Yet another collection of "hidden gems".