Thursday, April 23, 2009

The Winning Font

The other day a friend was telling me how much he hates judging poetry contests. He said the last time he chose a winner, he wasn't sure about the book. But he really liked the font.

I keep thinking about that font. It sounded a little like he was saying--the girl was really dumb, but he really liked the way she walked, giggled, talked . . .

At the same time, I know that when you read a lot of books, the appearance matters. I'm not sure I've ever thought much about the fonts. I don't even know which fonts I like or don't like.

I wonder if there is winning font.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Yes! 12-point Times New Roman, titles in 18-point.

Diane Vogel Ferri said...

I don't know about fonts but nothing can beat the cover of Book of Orgasms! I wish my chapbook had something that unique.

Erin O'Brien said...

There are Romans, fonts and orgasms here. Yay!

jeez! I haven't had a straight thought in days ...

Lyle Daggett said...

Years back I did typesetting for a living for a little bit. Type fonts can have pretty interesting names.

I got curious and Googled a little bit. A couple of my favorite names of type fonts I came across were Bliss and Insolent.

My guess is that either of them might be a winning font...

Nin Andrews said...

Wow. I'm interested in what an entire book of Bliss or Insolent would look like . . .
Funny!

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

As an editor, I've found that the more funky the font, the poorer the quality of the actual work. Best to just let the writing speak for itself. I, too, vote for the 12-point Times New Roman.

By the way, I read some of your fine translations in Artful Dodge and am dying to print something of yours. Have any translations laying around these days? The Los Angles Review would SERIOUSLY love to grab some!

lareview.translations@gmail.com