Fun With Fonts

I just got my monthly e-newletter from MyFonts, the best online resource for any type of, well, type that you are looking for. You can search by style, name, foundry, or if you are unsure of the name you can upload an image of a font that you like and use their What The Font feature to find out exactly what font it is. Each month they send me their newest Rising Stars to drool over, and maybe even perhaps buy.


This month I am enamored with the new Aviano Serif, an addition to Aviano and Aviano Sans that were hits last year and voted 'Best Display Couple'. With it's beautifully simple flourishes and a classic elegance, I can see why its a rising star. I particularly love the special characters for certain letter groupings, like EE and OO.


The other stand-out from this month is Oxida- designed to have a ragged, rusty edge. You can't see the details except in a large text size, so it would be best used as a headline on a poster or perhaps on a book cover. Even still, the elegant calligraphic feel of the type would lend itself well to an invitation even without the detail of the rusty edges.

Since invitations can vary in style greatly I try to be prudent about any special fonts that I buy. It needs to be something versatile enough to apply in many situations. Many of the fonts that come standard on a computer already fit this bill pretty well and I try not to get too crazy with really specialized fonts that may only serve a purpose once and then sink to the bottomless depths of my hardrive to never be seen again. But it is fun to browse!