A brief description of what each font is best suited for is provided however are not limited to this.
There are some top free cool fonts that are downloadable in this collection and some that come with your operating system… the others are not so free but they sure will help you improve your typography! They include original PC, Mac and Truetype fonts.
15 Serif Fonts
1. Adobe Caslon
Magazines, journals, text books, corporate communication.
2. Adobe Garamond
Textbooks and magazines
3. Bembo
Posters, packaging, textbooks.
4. Bodoni
Headlines, text, logos. (I couldn’t get big preview for this font.)
5. Clarendon
Dictionaries and headlines.
6. Courier
Tabular materials, technical documentation, word processing.
7. Excelsior
Newsletters, Reports, Proposals.
8. Lucida
Low resolution printing, small point sizes, reversed out half tones.
9. Minion
Limited edition books, newsletters, packaging.
10. Perpetua
For displays with fine lettering, long pages of text, chiseled text.
11. Sabon
Books and corporate communication.
12. Stempel Schneidler
For displays and fine publications that need a legible text type.
13. Times New Roman
Newspapers, magazines, corporate communication.
14. Trajan
Books, magazines, posters, billboards, anything to do with the ages or religion.
15. Walbaum
Magazines, journals, text books, corporate communication.
15 Sans-Serif Fonts
1. Akzidenz Grotesk
Large Signage, all purpose for print media.
2. Avenir
For books with large amounts of text
3. Bell Centennial
For listings and very poor printing conditions.
4. Bell Gothic
For very small amounts of text that contains large amounts of information.
5. DIN
For signage, posters and displays.
6. Franklin Gothic
Newspapers and where available space is limited.
7. Frutiger
Large signage, all purpose font for print media.
8. Futura
Large displays, small text in books.
9. Gill Sans
Signage, all purpose font for print media.
10. Helvetica
Large or small text, all purpose type figure.
11. Meta
Text, number, especially corporate communication.
12. Myriad
Large displays, all purpose media.
13. Trade Gothic
Newspapers and classified ads, advertising, multimedia.
14. Univers
Packaging, signage, text books.
15. Vag Rounded
Instruction manuals and print advertising.
Source: From the book “30 Essential Typefaces for a Lifetime” by Imin Pao and Joshya Berger. A history of typography is also found in this book as well as more information on each font and the designer.
