For text setting, a serif font remains
the preferred choice. The Poliphilus, shown here, has
all the class and style for a distinctive communication.
It reflects the rich humanistic tradition, going back to the Renaissance
period.
My favourite here is the GillSans. Designed in 1929 by Eric Gill, this humanist sans-serif has become an all-time classic, which keeps a certain "British" character however.
Monospace fonts recall the "typewriter"
aspect. Forget about standard computer fonts like Courier however, and
go for the Trixie, which has the look and feel of a real
mechanical typewriter.
I particularly like this font for draft texts; in final print however
it has its place where the corresponding effects are desired. The famous
"X" from the X-files is also a Trixie character.
Broken scripts ("Fraktur")
go back to the earliest times of typesetting. With their "long s"
and "round s" (for the beginning and the end of a syllable,
respectively) and their ligatures they are particularly suited for Germanic
languages. Such fonts were in general use in Germany until 1941. This
is a typical example: the DS-Normal-Fraktur, considered
a font for general daily use: newspapers, textbooks, etc.
These fonts represent a rich typographic tradition which merits our respect.
A number of organisations
is active to promote the use of these fonts today.
The Fraktur fonts have gained a bad reputation however since many people
associate them with Nazi Germany. This is completely wrong: it were the
Nazis themselves who outlawed
them in 1941 as being "Judenlettern".
After the war unfortunately, the Fraktur fonts never recovered from this
interdiction and today the German typescape is dominated by Helvetica.
Adolf Hitler would have been proud of it!