I probably mean something idiosyncratic by “non-standard” so I’ll explain from the outset that basically I mean fonts other than Times New Roman, Ariel and Calibri. As far as I can tell, in everyday professional non-design-related contexts, these are the only three that are considered standard, i.e., normal to use for example in a memo or in a handout for a meeting.
I personally prefer Calibri.
I was curious to know if there’s some font, not a crazy looking font but one that’s not one of these “standard fonts” or anyway one that’s not commonly used in professional contexts, that you like to use anyway.
I constantly use Courier New at my computer technology job. Courier is often used to indicate text input or output for log files or command line results. Courier is useful because it is a monospaced font, all characters are equal width, you can make lines above and below line up when you want, and so on. I always set my font on notepad to courier new, and I use notepad all the time to view files, or paste in text to strip out formatting, and so on.
Other text I just use the default font on the application I’m using, whatever that turns out to be.
It’s a funny way to word it since I would say a number of fonts like Georgia, Rockwell (for headlines), Tahoma, or Palatino, but as these are provided with several operating systems they are considered pretty “standard”. To really get a non-standard font you’d have to pay for it, and very few people outside of designers have any reason to do that.
The vast majority of people just need their information to be conveyed in an easy to read font with no particular styling involved. Term papers, progress reports, emails, you name it. Times New Roman or other system fonts handle that spectacularly with no thinking involved.
All the time, but I’m a layout artist. I have approximately 36 gazillion fonts on my computer, and I’m not afraid to use them…but not more than two per page, otherwise stuff starts to look like a ransom note or a church newsletter.
But no, in writing things like emails and memos, I stick to the usual suspects.
I’m a fan of Verdana, especially for use in spreadsheets. It seems to be more readable at small sizes than a lot of other options. Arial has real problems in this regard (someone in another thread posted an example showing how hard it is to distinguish a 6 and an 8), and something about Calibri has always annoyed me.
My absolute favorite font in the world is Bernhard Modern. I self-published a series of books using that, but I’m not sure if I’d call that a “professional” usage. In part I like the exaggerated heith of letters like bdlk - it’s a lot like my handwriting in that regard. However, I wouldn’t use this for something like a memo.
I created and sold a comic book – many years ago. Long enough ago, I was using Word Perfect to do the lettering.
I used a font I bought online as a package; the specific font was “Pencilpoint,” and is a kind of more-dignified “Comic” font. It really does work pretty well for word balloons in a comic book.
It’s not mine, but I received an email from an attorney, and while the body of the email was in a “standard” font, the signature was in Comic Sans. I asked around the office and discovered that it was the person’s favorite font and that they used to write the entirety of their emails in it, until other coworkers and colleagues called them out on it.
I love Verdana. When I first started working in web design, I was told that it was the preferred choice for use on the web, so I got used to it.
I’m in a very corporate environment, so I mostly tend to use the defaults, but when the default on our email program switched to Calibri, I really disliked it. It looks blurry to me. So I went in and set the default for my emails to Verdana.
FWIW, I, along with most mathematicians (and physicists and computer scientists) use a font called Computer Modern designed by Don Knuth. I have looked at Times and find it harder to reader. It was designed to save paper during WW I, I believe.
It irritates me when people use cutesy fonts in a business/professional context. My son’s 4th grade teacher wrote emails in purple in a font that was downright unreadable. I used to c&p her emails into Notepad just to read them.
I have to use Times New Roman for legal-type documents. I use Calibri for most everything else. If you set Times to “small caps,” it looks really nice for titles and book covers and such.
Georgia is functionally similar to Times, but better. Verdana is functionally similar to Calibri. I prefer Verdana, but our systems default to Calibri, so I just go with that.
Arial Narrow is handy for spreadsheet emergencies, and I absolutely adore Courier New. I get a chance to use it so rarely, however.
My resume is in Garamond. It looks spiffier than Times, but it’s still pretty conservative. That might work if you’re looking for something a bit different.
I prefer to use Verdana for web design and Palatino for anything that will end up in print. My workplace officially endorses Bembo for a variety of uses - I like it a lot too. I’ve also been enjoying watching the development of new attractive and easy-to-read fonts specifically for the Web.
There’s also a font out there now that’s supposed to be easier for dyslexics to read, which I find very interesting. Not sure I’d use it in a professional context unless I was a reading tutor or similar, though.
Nothing crazy, but I change sometimes. Not most of the time. My dissertation was in Palatino. CV/resume and some other documents are in Garamond. For big posters I’ve been using Gill Sans MT for titles and such, Trebuchet for the rest (not sure how I feel about serifs in this situation). If I’m writing a one-off paper though, I usually stick with Calibri or whatever is the default. Courier of course in rare occasions where I need ASCII art of something.
Book Antiqua. It’s not wacky enough to get me told to change it, but it’s a nice change from Arial and Times New Roman. I really hate Calibri, and always change my default documents to Times or Book Antiqua. I create professional letters and documents, and I think Book Antiqua’s a nice choice.
I read some time ago that all documents submitted to the Supreme Court had to use Century. Ever since then I’ve used century I figure if it’s easier for a bunch of octogenarians to read hundred page documents with it it was probably a good idea. Over all I find it very easy to read and I don’t think anyone notices that I’m using a different font.
I do not venture far afield from the usual fonts for professional correspondence. For email programs, I just leave the default. For stuff I print out, I usually use Times New Roman or Minion. Recently, I’ve been moving to Latex for documents (or rather, LaTeX, or whatever the fuck the stupid actual rendering of the name is supposed to be.) I really like the font it uses, which is just something called “Computer Modern.”
