“My go-to is probably Helvetica, for simplicity’s sake.”—Sara Schmidt, Global Retail Design, Nike
“I use H&FJ Whitney on most of my own documents. I feel like it typesets so well without a lot of adjustments. Also, it comes in many weights that makes creating hierarchy much easier.” —Allison Bloss Normandin, Creative Director, KBDA
“My ‘daily’ font choice is hardly exceptional. It’s simply Verdana. For clients, I’ll often go to great lengths to make appropriate type selections. But typically, my personal projects involve producing presentations for college instruction and writing freelance feature stories and essays for publications. For that, I work solely on the computer, for the computer. And my needs are essentially practical: utility, clarity, legibility, and such. So: Verdana.
Here’s a specific example: through the years I’m constantly updating dozens of Keynote shows for my design history classes, and Verdana’s neutral enough to fit unobtrusively with the images, which are the primary focus. And since the font’s cross-platform compatible, it’s also hassle-free. Plus, I simply don’t have the time—or the need—to make ongoing type alterations or to appear “contemporary.”
I also appreciate Verdana’s stroke variations and other subtle qualities that recall earlier, humanist faces; for example, Edward Johnston’s London Underground letterforms.
I have a subjective reason for my preference as well: I greatly admire Matthew Carter. Naturally, I respect his enormous skills and his decades of accomplishments. And as a person, he’s always impressed me with his intelligence, kindness, and generous spirit. The guy's truly a class act.” —Michael Dooley Design creative director, Print magazine contributing editor, Art Center and LMU instructor
“I find myself using Aaux Next for my personal use–because it looks simple but modern, it is wide, I love the italics version, the hairline, the regular, and semi-bold. Even when the kerning is tight it still looks good and legible.” —Maverick Velasco, Senior Motion UX Designer, Samsung Electronics and UX Design, Microsoft
“Univers for its variety of weights and clean look/feel.” — Rachel Martin, Design Director at Rachel Martin Design and AIGA Design Envy Curator
“As much as I love typography and drawing type and lettering, I am not huge on fonts. However, in the last couple of years I've gotten more into researching newer typefaces for specific jobs.
My defaults change every so often, but for body copy I've always favored the Trade Gothic and Franklin Gothic: they are workhorse type families, with many weights and widths that can accomplish almost anything you need with body copy and the letterforms are nice, clean and easy to read at both smaller and bigger sizes.” —Bernardo Margulis, Principal of This Makes Me Happy and Adjunct Professor at Arcadia University and Moore College of Art and Design
“Futura Light and Book. For now. Because the O and o are perfect circles.” —Jimmy Chen, Former Creative Director of Sony DADC
