The Survey
Scoring Criteria
Imprint
Roger Black (Danilo Black, Inc., USA)
Stephen Coles (Typographica, USA)

Stephen Coles is a writer and typographer living in Oakland and Berlin. After six years at FontShop San Francisco as a creative director, he now publishes the websites Typographica, Fonts In Use, and The Mid-Century Modernist. Stephen is also a regular contributor to Print and Codex magazines, a Type Camp instructor, and a member of the FontFont TypeBoard.


Amplitude looks good in most settings: clean and readable at all font sizes, and dynamic and powerful in headings. With a huge range of weights and widths, plus the recent addition of italics, Amplitude is my go-to workhorse for almost anything.


An everyday scene in a bookshop: “Why does this book (or this magazine) look so great? Oh yeah, it’s set in Scala.”


It is still the most versatile, modern extended font family around. De Groot’s work has been copied many times (though not by its forerunner PMN Caecilia, which would be on this list instead if it had as much to offer as the Thesis tribe).


Minion is the consummate “invisible” serif typeface. Beatrice Warde would approve. Also extremely economical, without seeming condensed.


Much of what is on the web is easier to read thanks to these two.


Not a chart-topper like Gotham, but designed at a time when H&FJ’s work was less sterile and more individual. A historical font family which blends easily into modern design.


The first script font to use ligatures and alternatives successfully to achieve a more natural look. Anything that Bickham Script touches is guaranteed to look first rate.


Klavika is the embodiment of the information age, hard-edged and mechanical, yet still quite usable.


Like Albert-Jan Pool with FF DIN, Tobias Frere-Jones demonstrated with Interstate that it is possible for familiar template lettering to become a successful professional typeface.


Possibly the most overused typeface in the world, but also the most perfect. (Just stop using it for text on screen!)

Jan Middendorp (Publizist, Berlin)
Veronika Elsner (Elsner + Flake, Berlin)
Bertram Schmidt-Friderichs (TDC, Mainz)
Ralf Herrmann (TypoForum, Weimar)
Claudia Guminski (FontShop, Marketing, Berlin)