Ask HN: What's a Good Professional Font You Use?

I use Georgia and I have used Bookman at times. They are both reasonably open styles and look good on both a screen and paper. The old standard is Times New Roman, but Times was designed for legibility while cramming as much text into a newspaper column as possible. I think it looks cramped.

Re: Ask HN: What's a Good Professional Font You Use?

#5

Post by noodle » Tue, Jan 27, 2009, 9:48 PM UTC

i like georgia and verdana -- shouldn't have any issues if you end up having to send something as a .doc, and they're good basic-but-not-too-common fonts. use one for headings and the other for body, either way works.

Re: Ask HN: What's a Good Professional Font You Use?

#6

Post by arturoman » Tue, Jan 27, 2009, 9:53 PM UTC

Wingdings.

Re: Ask HN: What's a Good Professional Font You Use?

#7

Post by poppinphresh » Tue, Jan 27, 2009, 10:01 PM UTC

noodle wrote: post #5

i like georgia and verdana -- shouldn't have any issues if you end up having to send something as a .doc, and they're good basic-but-not-too-common fonts. use one for headings and the other for body, either way works.

Both great choices. I'm not really a fan of using them together though.

Re: Ask HN: What's a Good Professional Font You Use?

#8

Post by noodle » Tue, Jan 27, 2009, 10:06 PM UTC

poppinphresh wrote: post #7

noodle wrote: post #5

i like georgia and verdana -- shouldn't have any issues if you end up having to send something as a .doc, and they're good basic-but-not-too-common fonts. use one for headings and the other for body, either way works.

Both great choices. I'm not really a fan of using them together though.

i definitely like both of them, and i also definitely am not very artistically inclined. i'll cede to a higher authority on whether they work together or not.

Re: Ask HN: What's a Good Professional Font You Use?

#9

Post by ii » Tue, Jan 27, 2009, 10:15 PM UTC

yan wrote: post #3

Whatever font the LaTeX resume template uses.. http://www.rpi.edu/dept/arc/training/latex/resumes/

They use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Modern and can optionally use Helvetica or New Century Schoolbook.

Re: Ask HN: What's a Good Professional Font You Use?

#10

Post by JacobAldridge » Tue, Jan 27, 2009, 10:15 PM UTC

noodle wrote: post #5

i like georgia and verdana -- shouldn't have any issues if you end up having to send something as a .doc, and they're good basic-but-not-too-common fonts. use one for headings and the other for body, either way works.

These have been my preferred resume fonts as well, but my upvote was for the key point you make about issues at the other end. Especially with a resume, you don't want the fonts to not exist on the recipient's machine because a lot of formatting will be lost (and your text may be replaced by Courier New - aagh).

I've worked with a few companies now that have used specialist fonts for marketing; it's fine in pdf form but most documents end up being Arial or Verdana anyway to be safe.