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The 10 most popular newspaper typefaces Matt Dec 01 2006

20 comments Latest by Bruno Toffolo

The 10 most popular typeface families in American newspapers according to a study by Ascender Corporation:

1. Poynter
font

2. Franklin Gothic
font

3. Helvetica
font

4. Utopia
font

5. Times
font

6. Nimrod
font

7. Century Old Style
font

8. Interstate
font

9. Bureau Grotesque
font

10. Miller
font

Related: Newspaper Body Text [Design With Reason]

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20 comments so far

Dave 01 Dec 06

I’m actually surprised Interstate isn’t higher on the list. It’s all over the newspaper here (The Oregonian) and on just about every other newspaper I happen to pick up when traveling.

Jeff Croft 01 Dec 06

Interestate is definitely popular. We use it in our print edition here in Lawrence. Can’t believe Trade Gothic didn’t make the list.

Interesting list. Thanks, guys!

Stephen Glauser 01 Dec 06

Very interestnig. Thanks.

Chris Johanesen 01 Dec 06

It would be very interesting to compare these results to a subset of the papers in the highest 10% by circulation.

Martin Ringlein 01 Dec 06

Now can someone put together “The 10 most popular typeface families in American news websites”?

I’d be curious how closely related the two mediums are or are not!

Kim Siever 01 Dec 06

Not in my newspaper. They use whatever face they want and each article uses a different one. I can’t wait until they grow up.

Stephen Glauser 01 Dec 06

Kim, what paper in Lethbridge are you reading that they are still using random typefaces? It’s a fairly large city, so I’m surprised by the amateurism.

Mike Higdon 01 Dec 06

I wonder what that says about my paper, the only one we use in that list is Utopia and it’s for our body text. I’m really surprised whitney isn’t on there, it’s got such a huge versatile family it’s rediculous. But it’s also a few thousand dollars, so maybe that’s why. We use Waulburn, whitney and Utopia and sometimes Champion (that one has a lot of personality for a big scary font of death).

wwws 02 Dec 06

now i know. Thanks for the info.

andrew_h 02 Dec 06

this is why i refuse to read newspapers… the gross negligence of Comic Sans in the newspaper industry

BillyG 02 Dec 06

Why does nobody see that that data is from 2004?

Su 02 Dec 06

BillyG: Are you implying the data isn’t relevant? Kim’s notwithstanding, exactly how often do you think newspapers change their font choices? Or was there some design upheaval in 2005?

Pramit Singh 02 Dec 06

What fonts does the NYT use in its InfoGraphics?

Scott 02 Dec 06

The newspaper I work for uses bookman for its text. I kind of like it.

harry 02 Dec 06

I suppose Trade Gothic is no longer used either – tool dated, what a shame

jon 03 Dec 06

Pramit: NYT uses a Franklin and a Helvetica light in infographics.

Sort of a weird survey, not distinguishing between text and display. And outsiders have to understand that the vast majority of publishers- the ones in small markets -use no-name copies of many fonts, dating back to the days when photo-typesetting was done on a dedicated machine and shipped with a standard set of fonts—including bootlegs of Helvetica et al.

(Sort of like the early days of Macintosh, when every newsletter trying to be stylish used the Palatino that was part of the set that shipped with the machine (Are you listening, Roll Call?)).

Andy 04 Dec 06

Isn’t it “The quick brown fox jumps over…” not “jumped over…”? Unless, I guess, he’s jumping over more than one lazy dog. Otherwise, there’s no “s”.

michel v 04 Dec 06

It was a very busy day for the quick brown fox, Andy.

Danny Sanchez 04 Dec 06

Hmmm… I wonder how Minion fared in the grand scheme.

Bruno Toffolo 07 Dec 06

Sylfaen would be a good one to put on the list. Even being a “common” font, I think it reminds me a newspaper when I’m reading something written using it.

Comments are closed