Category Archives: 4 Styles

Vera Sans

Posted on Feb 24, 2012 by .
Vera Sans Heading

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vera sans example A sans serif font trade­marked by Bit­stream, Inc.

Vera Sans has a large x-height and gen­er­ous aper­tures, and should retain read­abil­ity at smaller sizes. But I find the bold low­er­case a  tends to “fill in” and become dif­fi­cult to read at 14px and smaller on Win­dows browsers (Safari, IE, Chrome, and Fire­fox) when tested on crossbrowsertesting.com. Thus, while text is com­fort­able to read at 14px, I rec­om­mend using Vera Sans bold at 15px and larger.

Vera Sans comes in reg­u­lar, bold, italic, and bold italic. It is avail­able for free down­load at fontsquirrel.com. It is also avail­able via typekit.com.

Filed under 4 Styles, FontSquirrel, Sans Serif, TypeKit |

Droid Serif

Posted on Feb 22, 2012 by .
droid_serif

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droid serif exampleDesigned by Steve Mat­te­son, Type Direc­tor of Ascen­der Corp.

Droid Serif is a tran­si­tional font; it feels more “ide­al­ized” than “writ­ten.” It has a slightly con­densed, “square-feeling” bowl, con­trast between thick and thin strokes, a ver­ti­cal stress, and ter­mi­nals and ser­ifs that don’t look pen-formed. It has a sig­nif­i­cantly larger x-height than Georgia.

Accord­ing to Ascen­der Corp., Droid Serif “fea­tures slightly con­densed let­ter­forms to max­i­mize the amount of text dis­played on small screens. Ver­ti­cal stress, sturdy ser­ifs and open forms con­tribute to the read­abil­ity of Droid Serif while its pro­por­tion and over­all design com­ple­ment its com­pan­ion Droid Sans.”

Droid Serif comes in reg­u­lar, italic, bold, and bold italic. It is avail­able for free down­load at fontsquirrel.com. It is also avail­able for font-linking at google web­fonts.

Filed under 4 Styles, FontSquirrel, Google Fonts, Transitional (Serif) |

PT Sans Regular

Posted on Feb 14, 2012 by .
pt_sans

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pt sans exampleDesigned by Alexan­dra Korolkova, Olga Umpel­eva and Vladimir Yefi­mov. Released by ParaType in 2009.

PT Sans is a mod­ern human­ist sans serif font. Imper­fect bowls, slightly tapered spurs, a tear-drop shaped coun­ter­form on the g, and a soft foot ter­mi­nal on the l all make PT Sans feel slightly more hand-written than man­u­fac­tured. It has a slightly nar­row bowl and a smaller x-height than Verdana.

PT Sans comes in reg­u­lar, bold, italic, and bold italic. It is avail­able for free down­load at fontsquirrel.com and at ParaType. It is also avail­able for font-linking at google web­fonts.

Filed under 4 Styles, FontSquirrel, Google Fonts, Humanist Sans Serif, Other Source |

Serif 6 Beta

Posted on Feb 13, 2012 by .
serif6_beta

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serif 6 beta exampleA font by Chris­t­ian Robert­son (Betatype). Serif 6 Beta is part of a larger fam­ily of fonts called Serif Beta.

Serif 6 Beta has slightly heav­ier strokes than the rest of the fam­ily. Though it is heav­ier than most tran­si­tional fonts, and has rel­a­tively small closed coun­ter­forms on the a and e, its ter­mi­nals, ser­ifs, stress, and bowls feel more tran­si­tional than old style. Serif 6 Beta feels more “ide­al­ized” than “writ­ten.” It has a slightly larger x-height than Georgia.

Serif 6 beta comes in reg­u­lar, italic, bold, and bold italic. It tests well across browsers, though there are some let­terspac­ing issues in Safari on Win­dows XP. The whole fam­ily is avail­able for free down­load at Betatype.

Filed under 4 Styles, Other Source, Transitional (Serif) |