A font that almost made it. A serif font designed by Jean François Porchez of Porchez Typofonderie, Le Monde Courrier attempts to “re-establish a style halfway between writing and printing.”

First, let me say, I love this font! The overall structure and system (when viewed on Safari, Chrome, Opera or Firefox from my mac) is gorgeous. I want to use it. But I can’t (at least not for extended text).

Unfor­tu­nately, Le Monde Courrier has slightly uneven spacing at text sizes. For example, look at the word reading (first word, fifth line down) in the top example at left. The space between the e and a is too loose compared to the re and di in the same word. This problem occurs multiple times in text, between a variety of letter pairs.

And, unfortunately, the problem gets worse on Windows platforms (see the lower example at left, a screenshot from Safari on Windows 7). Letters get narrower, blockier, and more loosely spaced. Letterspacing between ed, er, ea, en, and al all get too loose. Granted, the font remains legible, but it loses some of its readability and grace.

I cat­e­go­rize Le Monde Courrier as an “Other Serif” font, because it does not fall neatly into any of the gen­eral his­toric cat­e­gories com­monly used to describe serif type.

Le Monde Courrier grace­fully mixes-and-matches approaches to font design. The e, i, and l have italic influence, while most other letters are Roman. It has a large x-height, a single decker g, and an almost monoline stroke — all of which make the font feel more structured. But it also has gen­er­ous aper­tures, pen-formed serifs, and an implied stress on the bowls — all which help it feel more humanist.

Le Monde Courrier is an absolutely lovely font originally designed for print. It has a couple of spacing and hinting issues to work out so it can continue to be absolutely lovely on screen. It’s worth keeping an eye on. If we’re lucky, future versions of the font will have better spacing. The web version of Le Monde Courrier has 6 weights and styles and is available from Typekit.

A transitional font by Robert Slim­bach, Utopia was orig­i­nally designed for print. It is part of the Adobe Orig­i­nals series.

Utopia has a vertical stress and significant contrast between thick and thin strokes. The strong vertical strokes and the slightly square bowl give the font a “square” feeling when used for text. It has a similar x-height and apertures to Geor­gia. Utopia’s letterspacing is slightly tighter, so I personally find it easier to read at larger sizes.

Utopia comes in 6 styles. Even though it was orig­i­nally designed for print, Utopia is well hinted and tests well across browsers. The fam­ily is avail­able on Type­kit.

A humanist sans serif font designed by Steve Matteson.

Open Sans was designed with an upright stress, but still feels humanist due to its open apertures, double-decker g, and humanist italic. It has a similar x-height to Verdana, but has a lighter stroke weight, and even more clarity (legibility) at smaller sizes. The bold feels a bit heavy, but retains legibility. There is also a semi-bold for use when the bold is too heavy.

Open Sans comes in 10 styles. It holds up well cross browser. The whole fam­ily is avail­able on both Typekit and Google Web Fonts.

A sans serif open license font family, funded by Canonical and implemented by Dalton Maag.

Ubuntu has some quirky ele­ments, such as the corners created where shoulders meet stems on the letters a, r, n, m, h, p, q, and u. The quirks don’t under­mine the over­all tex­ture, rhythm, or read­abil­ity of the font, but it does give text a slightly “futuristic” feel which may or may not be appropriate for a project.

Even with the “futuristic” feeling, I cat­e­go­rize Ubuntu as a human­ist sans because it has gen­er­ous aper­tures, bowls with implied stress (on the b, d, q, p), a curved foot on the lowercase l, and a relatively human­ist italic.

Ubuntu’s x-height is slightly smaller than Ver­dana, yet holds up very nicely at smaller sizes due to generous apertures and bowls. The bold weight is a bit heavy for my taste, though it is still legible on screen. While a semi-bold is available, it is not heavy enough to cre­ate a good con­trast to the reg­u­lar weight.

Ubuntu comes in 8 styles. I’ve tested the usual 4 plus the semi-bold, and they hold up beau­ti­fully cross browser. The whole fam­ily is avail­able on both Google Web Fonts and Typekit.

A serif font designed by Alexandra Korolkova, Olga Umpeleva, and Vladimir Yefimov and released by ParaType in 2010.

PT Serif is primarily a Transitional font; it feels more “ide­al­ized” than “writ­ten.” It has more con­trast between thick and thin strokes than you’ll see in an Old Style font, and it has a ver­ti­cal stress. Terminals and serifs feel more stylized than pen-formed.

PT Serif has a slightly larger x-height than Georgia, and holds up well at smaller sizes. It also pairs beautifully with its companion font, PT Sans.

PT Serif holds up beautifully across browsers. It has the usual four styles and weights, and is available via Google Webfonts, Typekit, and FontSquirrel.