I wrote to Daryl Lang today in response to his blog post about rouge subway signs (back story: I was at the DeKalb Avenue station the other day and noticed a black-on-white sign, which Daryl posted here, and Google brought my curiosity to his website), in which I explained the difference between the MTA’s Helvetica font and the once-used Akzidenz-Grotesk (if you’re interested, here’s a great site on Helvetica and the NYC subway). Although the standard signage font nowadays is now Helvetica, there are still bits and pieces of Akzidenz-Grotesk around. I’ve always prefered the latter, as it’s a slightly cheerier font – the diagonal cuts of the c and e remind me of smiley faces. Lame, I know.

But then it got me thinking about which fonts I love and which I truly abhor.  Admit it, you have those two.

My most loathed is Algerian Standard. I used to pass it every day while walking past Blatt Billards on my lunch break. Seriously, I dislike it so much that I wanted to spray paint the store sign. I don’t know where the deep-rooted hatred comes from, but I’m apparently not the only one. There’s actually a Flickr group called Algerian Font, A Burning Hate.  And Kenny over at Childrens Ministry Online has I Loath Algerian Font Days. It made #12 on Inspiration Bit’s “A Plea From 16 Most Overused Fonts.” I don’t like Curlz or Bradley Hand either, but they’re a far second and third from Algerian. I realized that I dislike most Victorian, circus, and Old West-inspired fonts.

In my more innocent days, Comic Sans MS was my font of choice (and you thought Algerian hatred was bad? There’s a whole website advocating the ban of Comic Sans). I used it entirely on my first website, which is lost somewhere in the bowels of Angelfire now. I used it for headers on my second website. Even though it was 10 years ago and I should cut myself some slack, I am appalled at the inconsistent use of fonts. Not to mention my overuse of  GIFs, stretched JPGs with artifacts, and a sad attempt to embed a BMP image of She-Ra and He-Man. However, it isn’t as bad as the first, which rivals CADIE’s HomePAGE.

I then moved on to Century Gothic, which is ultimately my favorite basic font, but realized it didn’t render well on some browsers. Now I stick to Arial and Georgia, for the most part. This website header is in the Jane Austen font.  I’m a big fan of (nice) handwriting fonts (sorry, Bradley and Kristen). This year, I plan to make my own personal handwriting font for $9.95.

One more link and I’m done – a shoutout to Kenny Kane for showing me the way to thousands of free fonts. Perhaps my favorites will change tomorrow.

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