Choosing a typeface for a book

[didko2]

Hi everybody!

I have recently started helping a professor at my uni with the design of his book, which is a 500+ pages study on the architecture of high-rise buildings. I really want to make things look very neat, and here's a list of typefaces I might or might not use for the body text:

• Minion Pro
• Garamond Premier Pro
• Warnock Pro
• ITC New Veljovic Pro
• Times Ten LT Std
• FF Meta Serif Pro
• FF Meta Pro
• Whitney

Probably some of them are a big no-no when it comes to body text, but I'm not very sure. My options are limited to fonts that have cyrillic characters.

I have attached a PDF file (and here's a jpg also) with a sample paragraph (the language is Bulgarian), set with each typeface, and I need your advice on what will work best. Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Thank you.

[didko2]

Sorry for double posting, but I couldn't figure out how to embed the image before, so here it is:

[Chris Lozos]

Your choice depends on what is best for the subject matter and then your aesthetic preferences.  What is the subject of the book and which typeface speaks to that?

[Ralf Herrmann]

All the typefaces you mention have a so-called “humanistic” letter-skeleton and can be used for copy text. So they will all work more or less. The real question is: do they fit the overall design concept of the book? What does a page look like? Is there another headline font?

[Mycroft]

You may find something appropriate in this small selection I've curated for you. Lyon would be my go-to for something on architecture because it's style fits the subject matter so well.

[Riccardo Sartori]

Adding to others’ advice:

• I don’t read languages written in Cyrillic, but for a 500-pages study, if written with Latin alphabet, I would choose a serif typeface for the main text, using a sans serif for shorter texts like caption, titles, and headlines (in this regard, a type system like Meta could prove useful). Of course it also depends on how many illustrations there are, and on how they’re handled.
• That said, something like Garamond or Warnock look too much “old style” for a book about high-rise buildings past ziggurats.
• You may want to use a typeface which acknowledge the specific conventions of Bulgarian Cyrillic.

[didko2]

Thanks for the replies, everyone.

Seems like I should've made some decisions on the grid/layout and overall tone first!

@Mycroft, thanks for the selection! From what I understand, your preference is towards geometric sans serifs, with a smaller x-height, looking a little art deco-ish. It does make a lot of sense to use these on an architectural book, but since my choice is limited to cyrillic-supporting typefaces only, I'll look into alternatives.

@Riccardo Sartori, Very few typefaces have the Bulgarian cyrillic — off the top of my head, those by Fontfabric (the only Bulgarian foundry). It is nice indeed, to have such cyrillic characters, but since it limits the options so much, I don't think it'd be suitable.

Anyways, I'll develop the layout a little more, and will update you on the progress.

Thanks!

Deyan

[Riccardo Sartori]

Very few typefaces have the Bulgarian cyrillic — off the top of my head, those by Fontfabric (the only Bulgarian foundry). ​

The biggest and better known Bulgarian foundry, for sure, but not the only one. And there are Bulgarian type designers, not necessarily based in Bulgaria, who still like to add some Bulgarian flavour to their Cyrillic, sometimes resulting in puzzling results for the user (I’m not saying that Ropa would be a good choice for your book, nor that there are many Bulgarian text typefaces, but the offerings aren’t so limited as it could seem at a first glance).

Another thing that could be investigated are typefaces with a locl OpenType feature for Bulgarian (I think I remember someone did it, perhaps it was Typonine, but perhaps just for Macedonian).

All that said, the first concern should be of course choosing a good, legible typeface.

[Sithoid]

You might want to look into Paratype fonts - it's a Russian company, so all their fonts support Cyrillic. For instance, I personally prefer their Original Garamond typeface compared to any other Garamond variations - for its neatly balanced stroke weight. (though that exact typeface might look a bit archaic given the subject).