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I would love to use Fedra-sans — But we are currently re-doing the ID for our firm, and using Fedra serif. so I think might be too close. But I love that face.

It needs to work well in rather large text blocks, but should be versitle enough to set in big advertisment type titles. Im considering NOT using Trajan at all, simple because of its over use and abuse, especialy in the whole “film” world. But I’m not sure I can get buy without it, being that is is incorporated into the logo.

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>The logo is in place (for now)

Kyle, I think you are thinking in getting rid of it

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James —

I’m excited you mentioned Giacomo. I had actually been looking at that face, strangley enough.

But what concerns me is no SC’s? And this system is laiden with acronyms and such. You think I can get by without it?

Great suggestions, I think I may run them by the others and see what they think.

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I love Giacome, very nice and lively blend, I feel, between American Gothic and Italian Renaissance attitude, legible yet not bland. It could do with a small caps set, although the Sc should be part of the OTF-File… maybe an update for users or something? I wonder though, what Stephen doesn’t like about the a.

Emigre’s Priori by J.B. is also wonderful, although not really a very legible font, a bit too different. Still, I’m waiting for the right job to justify buying the set… I love the capital letters they did for the sans serif.

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As a few alternative suggestions, Adobe’s
Penumbra Sans is a tailor-made sans-serif
companion to Trajan, but, like Trajan,
it is an all-caps font:

http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/P/P_1112.jhtml

Also, Berthold’s Formata works very well when
paired with Trajan, as its upper-case characters
have similar structure to Trajan in many respects:

http://www.bertholdtypes.com/adobe_lib/080218000.html

David

James, that’s pretty good news about Giacomo SC :-). It’s always keen to have non-Adobe-folks adopt the OTF-Pro-format (when Linotype et al seem to be content with just converting old fonts to OTF without using the pro features), and your typographic style on Giacomo and Clearview is, as I said, legible and clear and thus a solid alternative to other, more overused sans serif typefaces. So I sure hope you find the time to do some more OTF stuff :-D.

Kyle, are you looking for a face for use in text, or a secondary typeface to use with your Trajan logotype?

We just did a system that uses Trajan in the logotype, with Meta as the secondary typeface. I thought it was an odd pairing at first, but it works. I think it might work as your text face — it is fairly complete (with small gaps and lining numerals, etc.)

I know Meta was SO used for a while, but it’s “trend” status seems to have subsided a bit of late. You might just take a look.

Giacomo’s weights are not many, but they seem to be nice and close, which means you could fake smallcaps adequately. You know all about that, don’t you Kyle?  ;-)

hhp

Haha — I do, I do ;)

Nothing a little ID Character Style cant fix

and I promise I will send you those print samples, here somtime, maybe before I die. Getting to FedEx seems to be like pulling teeth around here.

Now I am trying to decide between Meta and Giacomo. Meta seems to be a little more freehearted, although I love the appeal of a lesser ‘used’ face like Giacomo.

Hmmm.. That hundred dollar difference might be the determaining factor here (sorry James ).

I might have to lean twards Meta.

On an additional note FontFont was very helpful in sending .pdf samples. and even set a bunch of text in a .pdf for me, all within about half an hour of calling them, they had it emailed to me.

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> 6 weights are not many?

Oh, sorry — I was looking at Alfon by mistake.

hhp

Kyle: FedEx? Feel free to just use regular snailmail.

hhp

> Comes out to $6 per font per computer. Would it be better if I gave it away?

Well, I think we both know the hard work that goes into developing something of this nature.

I think the hand made Bentley wich sells at near the 300,000$ range is well worth the investment, but on my income, not quite realistic.

I hate to have to admit it, but I think we all know we have to do our best to cut corners here and there.

Hope you didnt find the previous post insulting — this was definately not my intention.

If it is any consoltation, I would only be using it on one system maybe two tops.

The OT crossplatform factor is quite an advantage though.

James’ suggestion of La Gioconda reminds me of another Cresci-inspired typeface, Gerard Unger’s Capitolium. It has a sans serif companion, Vesta, so might fit the bill perfectly for your job, Kyle.

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>I know Meta was SO used for a while, but >it’s “trend” status seems to have subsided a bit >of late. You might just take a look.

Same here. After years of not using Meta, I was verrry close to using it again on a job some days ago and found it quite pleasing, but still decided on FFInfo, as the job needed a bit of a more static and computer-like feel while still maintaining legibility. Still, you don’t see Meta too often anymore, and the font itself is good work. We still could use a MetaLight, imo, though. And of course, full OpenType Treatment. Makes sense with all those foreign language sets already devbeloped at MetaDesign/FontShop.

And James… for a small foundry, Giacomo does come with a rather painful price tag attached. The OTF made me buy it, but still… prices like these are what keeps me from buying Bliss and a batch of Lineto Fonts. Your work is outstanding, and I’m all for paying the price a speicific work is worth, but when even works by Luc(as) de Groot and Fontshop are less expensive, it makes the decision to get your fonts a bit harder. A few Euro more and I could have bought the wonderful Taz III. And over at Chester’s and Rick’s you get the great section at 99$… now THAT is an incentive :-D.

Still, Giacomo is well worth the money spent (maybe the Upgrade can be for free, though, hinthintnudgenudgewinkwink…) Would’ve bought Clearview as well, but my money was all spent… we’re finally moving into a larger house/bureau and I’m pretty broke after buying the whole thing.

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Well billing, haha, thats a tricky subject.

In my case it is subjective.

With purchasing something like a type face, with some clients we would mark it up by 10-20%, with some clients that price might need to be burried within something else. Sometimes we might not even mark up for a type face, if it is something that we are basically bying to use once or twice on some client work and then keep for our own use later. I think realisticly you have to take things like this on a case by case basis.

I know some that would be fine with purchasing fonts. I know other thats would say, “What th hell? $360 for a font? Why didnt you just use something you had” and would then begin thinking that you are trying to cheat them in some way.

Like I said with us, we have decided that billing for things of this nature needs to be delt with on a client by client basis.
Were not the biggest firm, but we do have a good a good amount of people, and a modest sized client base.

James — excellent suggestions. Even if you are
tooting your own horn, I think Giacomo would work
nicely.

A seperate query: say someone liked everything
about Giacomo but the lowercase ‘a’. How much
extra would you charge for the same family with
a custom-made glyph in that slot?

This deserves it’s own thread for sure James. I’ve seen two
approaches out there: the big agency model and the studio
model.

The big agencies buy the big libraries (like these)
and supplement as needed with single fonts from various
places.

The studio model is more like Kyle described:

a) If at all possible, pass the cost on to your client. This
means padding the project expenses when you write the
estimate, if you foresee having to buy type. This model is
standard for photography and illustration and can be for
fonts, especially if it’s more of a specialty face that you will
have a hard time reusing in your studio.

b) If you can’t justify passing the costs onto your client,
invest in faces you will be able to use later.