That’s really the key; I’ve done my share of looking at resumes for positions we’ve hired for, and the main thing you don’t want to be is that resume with the weird looking font.
Generally speaking a sans-serif font looks a little out of place relative to the dozens of TNR ones I’ve seen- not necessarily bad, but noticeable.
I’d go with TNR or Garamond for a resume and cover letter if for the only reason that nobody’s going to look at your resume and go “Why’d this guy use that fucked-up font?”
And that’s likely how it’ll roll; nobody’s going to go “Oh, he’s unique!” or “What a cool font!”. They’re most likely to consider it to be weird and out of the ordinary in a negative way.
To take one more crack at answering the OP’s question:
If I was preparing a letter to send to 500 companies (let’s say I’m asking for donations to a serious cause) there are dozens of typefaces that I’d regard as entirely appropriate.
Popular music is more diverse than 20 years ago, and so is design. Computers have put serious production tools into the hands of millions and people with talent can go wherever their muse leads. Decades back companies might actually be afraid not to set their logo in Helvetica, but it’s not that way anymore.
But as a designer, if I get a flyer or a letter set in Arial or Times I’ll assume the creator is incurious and probably enjoys glurge emails.
One of the things you have to consider about font choices is how they will be rendered. It’s quite one thing to talk about the extremely high-res rendering in quality books or commercially-printed stuff, and another to talk about things coming out of laser printers and inkjets, and yet one more thing to consider screen rendering.
Most traditional fonts have problems with laser/screen rendering; there’s not enough detail and nuance to carry their shapes precisely enough. Many of the newer font iterations (particularly TNR over traditional Times) are intended for lower-res rendering. Calibri and Cambria are fonts developed for office-grade rendering. Those fonts will render and print more clearly across a wide spectrum of office-grade equipment than Garamond or Jenson will… and some look worse when they come off of a high-res device. They depend on the slight fuzziness to appear properly, the same slight fuzziness that can make some traditional Garamond sets a PITA to read off of the office HP.
One of the few combinations that do well across the board, inkjets to maximum res, are Minion Pro and Myriad Pro. They’re my go-to pair for general design, and the Pro sets have 12 faces each, making them extraordinarily flexible. If anyone is going to pitch a ‘different’ and distinctive font for their office or company, you can’t go wrong with this pair.
That’s one of my favorite go-to pairings. Clean and classy, easy to read. It looks different enough, elegant even, but subtly enough that folks used to the “usual” fonts might not immediately tell the difference.
Plus I second tapu’s recommendation of Helvetica. The best documentary of a typeface ever produced. I love the love-hate relationship graphic designers have with it. Similar to Times Roman.
Some courts prefer briefs in Times New Roman, but others like the U.S. Seventh Circuit recommend that you only use Times New Roman in your brief if you’d like for them to wipe their butts with it. To this end they’ve written a lengthy discourse on typography and font:
I’m on the TNR-hating side. It is more difficult to read quickly, skim, or scan for keywords. TNR has a tendency for the skinny letters, i, l, to snuggle up and merge with the vertical-sided letters, K, m, n.
Note also its near-universal absence for use in any interface application, be it physical labeling or graphical interfaces and buttons. It is not friendly to quick recognition. It is just style over function, a holdover from the typesetting days.
Fair enough if you perceive it that way. I don’t, at least, not on hi-res laser output. I do prefer Georgia for document reading on my tablet, as mentioned before, but that’s only because of the tablet’s more limited resolution where Georgia appears more distinct than TNR. I think Amateur Barbarian had a very good point about taking into account how the font is going to be rendered; different fonts will be better in different circumstances for that reason alone, aside from style considerations. Apparently the Baskerville that I like on the Kindle was, like the other fonts, specifically fine-tuned for its display. I guess that’s why there are relatively few available built-in fonts and why they all look so good.
Labeling is an entirely different matter. I would tend to use sans serif fonts for that, possibly bold and vivid ones. It’s a completely different font application.
