Typophile

Limited to the Microsoft Office suite of fonts for corporate identity

Mithering

I was recently challenged to refresh a corporate identity for a mental health training organisation. The brand currently uses Arial (!) exclusively. Body copy, headlines. Everything. After a few blissful days of research, I came up with

Gesta Regular
http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/r-type/gesta/ as a text typeface and

Sommet Rounded Black
http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/insigne/sommet-slab-rounded/black/ for headlines.

I was quite happy with this solution; the slightly quirky Sommet Rounded looks quite nice with the easy, friendly elegance of Gesta. Everyone loved this pair. Until we consulted with IT.

Because the client uses Word to produce so much of their internal communications, it was determined that bringing in an "outside font" for body copy would be too complicated (and expensive). And so now I've been asked to choose a typeface from the Microsoft Office suite to pair with Sommet Rounded Black for their corporate identity (business cards, pamphlets, posters, etc.).

I need a sans serif with a few different weights, and unfortunately, there isn't much choice. At this point, I'm thinking about choosing Segoe and calling it a day, but I'm wondering if anyone out there has an ideas.

Hrant H Papazian

Does MS allow (internal) weight inter/extra-polation of their fonts?

hhp

Riccardo Sartori

Availability would be tied to the version of Office and Windows installed.

Johan Palme

I think the only typeface that comes in more than than the basic two weights in MS Office is good old stalwart Franklin Gothic, which has three plus condensed versions and italics.

Riccardo Sartori

By the way, looking at Sommet, I think Calibri’s roundness could work in harmonising text with headlines.

Mithering

Interesting about Franklin being the only font with multiple weights. Wonder what the story is behind that? Both Segoe and Calibri have regular and bold weights in InDesign, so as long as I, the designer, have access to these, I can leave the client with their Microsoft-generated weights for producing documents in Word.

Riccard0, I did consider Calibri as a match for Sommet. It seems like a good pair, although I do hesitate to use a typeface that also happens to be the default for Microsoft programs. Sigh. It's the old argument, rehashed over and over again: Why can't clients see the value in individuating themselves through typeface choices? (Oh right, they all look the same anyway.) I am floored that I would be asked to create a distinctive identity for a brand using fonts so generic and overused they practically blend into the table.

Riccardo Sartori

Well, put it this way: using the default typeface will drastically reduce the risk they screw up your carefully crafted design using a random font ;-)

HVB

A little late, but there are many fonts supplied with the full MS Office Suite, which includes Pagemaker:

Office 2007:
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fonts/product.aspx?PID=148

Publisher 2007:
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fonts/product.aspx?PID=158

Office 2010:
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fonts/product.aspx?PID=163

Captured from commoncrawl.org on 26 Apr 2015. original URL