I just don't want to buy any more fonts at this time

Damn, there goes my suggestion: commission a custom serif version of Source. :->

But here's a good lead from Paul's Typblography article*: "I was drawn to the forms of the American Type Founders’ gothics designed by Morris Fuller Benton." Like see if somebody has made a serif version of News Gothic. BTW that sort of thing is FontBureau's neck of the woods.

* http://blogs.adobe.com/typblography/2012/08/source-sans-pro.html

hhp

So, you want change? Check this out:
http://www.fontbureau.com/fonts/serif/Trilby/
Actually I ran into that thinking that a slab might be just the ticket here.

BTW, I just realized: Why the role-reversal of serif/sans in terms of text/display?

hhp

Because Word 2007/2010's default template is Cambria for headings and Calibri for text?

Touché.
But, what do we think about using Word for typsetting? :-)

hhp

According to this:
http://www.fontbureau.com/fonts/CalifornianFB/
Californian FB (included in MS Office) is "compatible" with Benton Sans (first on the list). Both Benton Sans and Source Sans Pro are based on News Gothic + some claim Source Sans Pro and Benton Sans are "very similar when the font weight is at 300 or less".

So I'll try with Californian FB and some slab serifs (thanks hrant) when I get home :)

As for why the role-reversal of serif/sans... habbit. And yes, Word is to blame...

How about Adobe's original open source font, Utopia? I just tried combining that with Source Sans here and it looks quite good.

(Actually, the version I use is an expanded TrueType derivative called Heuristica, but for Latin they're visually equivalent.)

I was wondering about Californian or Berkeley myself, but the oblique humanist 'e' might not harmonize satisfactorily. (I also experimented with Goudy Old Style; the combination looks OK-ish but didn't seem quite right to me.)

for anyone stumbling across this post, Source Serif has now been released:
http://blog.typekit.com/2014/05/20/source-serif-pro/

Most welcome news.

Since I have you :-) let me try my luck here:
What's the rationale behind the "f" and "j" going strongly beyond their ascender/descender bounds?

hhp

Actually the "f" is as I described, but it's actually not the "j" going lower than the other descenders, it's the "g" not going as low. This all makes no sense to me* but I'm open: what gives?

* What other text fonts are there that do stuff like this?

hhp