Favorite fonts and why?

[slacker]

Now that I have the mechanics of authoring pretty much covered, I've been experimenting with some artistic choices. I must have 200 fonts on my machine, but no definitive guides as to which ones to use when authoring a dvd. Does anyone have any favorite fonts they use when creating menus? Or does everyone stick with the basics such as Arial, Georgia, and Verdana when doing titles and such. I read books decades ago defining the best scientifically tested fonts to use display on CRT terminals, monitors, etc., but am not quite sure the old rules apply any more.

[guns1inger]

Most rules of typography hold, with some specific issues perculiar to DVD authoring. As a general rule, any font used for slabs of text should be san-serif, and of a single type face. For clarity, san-serif fonts work best on displays because they have less details to cause interlace issues. However, if the point size is high enough, this might not be as much of an issue. You can also get around some of these problems by applying a small vertical blur to the text, and the use of drop shadows and soft glows.

My favoured fonts for normal text use are Verdana and Tahoma, but I also have an extensive font collection. I find that dingbats are invaluable for menu design as it gets you out of the text only rut when designing buttons. Some good ones include webdings, Holiday Pi and kinky valentine (all from dafont.com). I also like Trebuchet, the Kolo series, Viner hand ITC, and a small selection of brand fonts.

The other thing is that rules, as they say, are meant to be broken. If you can design in a way that works and uses fonts outside the norm, go for it. The biggest problem comes from the fonts used for the subpictures. This is because they have such a low bitdepth there is no blending. You may find that when you use a font in an image, it looks great on the menu, but put the same font into a button and the subpicture version shimmers because of interlace. A simple way around the problem is to not use the font for overlays. Use the font you want in the background image, but use a graphic of some form for the selection overlay instead. I do this a lot because I believe it makes the menus more interesting for viewer and more visually appealing.

[non-linear]

I try to use a font that best fits the particular compilation I'm making, usually trying to match any font used in logos, titles, etc. If I can't figure it out right off the bat, I'll make a sample and try it at www.whatthefont.com to identify the font (or to find a close facimile).

For a lot of my work though, I tend to use Verdana since it's a good, clearly readable font.

[slacker]

Thank you both for clueing me in on some things I hadn't thought about. Appreciate it! My work will be better for it.

[lordsmurf]

Aside from the basic rules, another common rule among designers is "if it comes with your computer, it sucks".

And I'd have to agree, get some better fonts. The ones that come with a computer are uninteresting. A simple font merely needs to be simple, that doesn't mean it has to be boring.

Avoid fancy fonts. A good sans serif or serif will be fine.

Software like CorelDraw comes with a whole library of fonts. You can buy font libraries fairly cheap, $20 for a few hundred. Many of them will suck, but you should end up with a good 50 or so.

[slacker]

Day of the Dead? Yep.

Thanks ls! I have collected tons of fonts as a by-product of designing web sites over the years. On a web site, I know what flies and what doesn't from experience. No question. But for DVD authoring... I'm a relative newbie (only 2 years FT). I was anticipating a few hidden rules or font combinations out there that have proved successful to others that hopefully would reduce a long and protracted experimentation period.

I'll give some time to sans serif and see how it looks.

Would appreciate anyone's opinion! Do the following fonts look ridiculous? Would you consider these fancy?

The first one is called "Smudger LET" for a title, the second one "Oak" for a selection description.

[non-linear]

It's hard to give a good opinion since we don't know what kind of content you're creating, or how it would look in relation to the menu.

That first font I've actually used in one of my DVD compilations. I'm not sure how the second font you used would look for selection buttons. The best thing for you is to design the menu and then try different fonts and see what works for you; you should probably also do a test burn on a rewritable disc and see how it looks on your TV screen, since what might look good on a computer screen might be illegible or just look awful on an NTSC TV screen.

[slacker]

non-linear,

Thanks for the input. I'll check all the fonts out on the TV, definitely. I'm just trying to widdle down the list of potential fonts "theoretically" before I spend a ton of time glued to the TV. Any good experiences from others is greatly appreciated.

[lordsmurf]

Your fonts cannot be too thin or have too many frills if they are smaller than about 18-20 point. For the smaller fonts, like an episode selection, a clean sans serif or simple serif would be fine.

BankGothic, Franklin Gothic, any number of ITC fonts.

[ozymango]

Does anyone have any favorite fonts they use when creating menus? ... I read books decades ago defining the best scientifically tested fonts to use display on CRT terminals, monitors, etc., but am not quite sure the old rules apply any more.

Of late I'm finding I use a variation of Clearface Gothic quite a bit, it's a san-serif font with a little bit of "curve" to it, and I like the way it's quite readable on my telly. Plus -- and this may or may not be a concern with you -- I was working on a DVD project where I ended up making a case and cover label and this font also looks quite nice printed, so I was able to keep the consistent "look" on both the video and the printed text. So that was nice.

You can check out a boatload of fonts at www.dafont.com, some free, some shareware, some for sale, and I've found it a great resource for special projects. I suspect the key words here are "artististic choices," and really the only way to know for sure is to burn some samples to DVD and see how they play. You already noted this but I think it bears repeating: Burn test menus or text samples to DVD and playback on your TV -- and preferably somebody else's TV -- and see how readable the text is. You have more leeway here if you're only aiming to please yourself and especially if you have a large TV or monitor, but if you intend for others to watch this you may want to try how it reads on a 19" set or so. Depending on your needs, of course.

Oh, and another important factor -- Font color and background contrast. Some colors look great on a monitor and when you play 'em back on a TV, it makes your eyes bleed. I tend to stay pretty basic when it comes to menu text, no drop shadows, plain light or dark background with corresponding light or dark text, san-serif font, maybe subtle differences in line thickness in the font (like Clearface Gothic does), but nothing too weird.

My perspective on menus -- these are the parts of the DVD that take me the longest to "look" right to my satisfaction, and, conversely, the part of the DVD that people will spend the least time watching. So while it's fun to be artistic and creative, after you've watched a DVD once, how much time do you spend hanging around the menu? Mostly I figure people just want to be able to find where to go next, so keeping it simple is a good rule of thumb.

[skeg64]

Georgia, Verdana and Tahoma are 3 fonts that were commissioned by Microsoft and were specifically designed to be readable on a screen.

There is a nice typography resource at:
http://www.graphic-design.com/Type/index.html