Women- What is the sexiest font?

Who on earth would find a typeface sexy?

if your doing it right….. kerning is everything!

Oh my gosh, I am a great admirer of dishy fonts. My boyfriend and I are total font geeks – frequently passing signs and going “ah, a spot of 10pt Verdana, bit standard issue” or “hmm, that really ought to have been Helvetica…”.

Personally, for small body text, I love Lucida Sans, 10 or 11pt, neat and inoffensive but not horribly overdone like Arial. Similar sized Tahoma looks good too, but only with extra letter spacing. I recently found a font called Chalet London 1980 which I adore, but can’t afford.

I’ll shut up now, lest my geekery become too much of an embarrassment.

I’m not a woman but I’m an art person so I definitely think there are sexy fonts.

Go with Century Gothic.
It’s simple, suave and elegant.
Just remember to dress up your verbage too. Font does little on it’s own.

@reverie You have to buy fonts? My computer came with several I don’t pay extra for.

Zapfino and Papyrus are kind of nice.

I actually reaaaally like Rockwell. And yes, that is the Fluther font – well, one of them. :)

what about Centaur italic pro?

Not a woman, but I’m a designer person (whose taught typography for ten years)...

Classical romance – Vivaldi

Simple elegance – Venetian

@MrsNash: Please don’t ever utter the word Papyrus ever again. I promise you’ll thank me someday ;^)

@reverie: Keep the geekery flowing. Nothing like font-porn

I never thought of them as sexy, that is for sure, but I do like fonts and I am working on a poster using “Sweet as Candy.” It looks good on the poster.

Chalet London is very nice.

Times Italic – the Coke bottle of fonts.

Male designer here. Why is this question only just for the ladies?!

Bickham Script (opentype)!

I also think the lowercase g is the sexest in general.

@chyna, there are loads of standard fonts that are in the public domain, some of them updates of very old ones. There are many more that can be downloaded from sites for free, some of which are renamed knockoffs of licensed fonts. But the creation of a new font, with all its elements and its overall look and feel and its many variants (italic, bold, condensed, etc.) and special characters is the work of a designer. There is no more reason why a designer of fonts should give work away than should a designer of cars, buildings, jewelry, or packaging.

Well, I’ll tell you that it’s not Comic Sans.

As a woman, I don’t think I really consider any fonts to be sexy. The closest thing would probably be any type of freeflowing handwritten font, and this would be more sultry than sexy.

I’ve never seen a font I would call sexy in itself, although there are some I love for certain uses. I think sexiness is in the words.

Comic Sans = fail. Comic Sans doesn’t take off its socks.

Why do you all not like comic sans??? I just saw a thing on facebook making fun of comic sans.

I always liked it!!! Is there something wrong with me?

@rooeytoo: The major problem with Comic Sans is that it over-used to death. Same goes for Papyrus, Arial, University Roman and others.

Subjectively, Comic Sans is also not a very attractive and functional font. But that, of course, is an opinion. Just a widely held one.

@Jeruba Very good point on artists selling their work. I never thought of it that way.

@cprevite – you said subjective so I can’t dispute, but I do wonder what you mean by “functional?” Seems like the functionality of a font is that it is easy to read. This one is sans serif (guess that is why it is called Comic SANS), definitely not formal or rigid but why not attractive, what makes a font attractive in your opinion?

@rooeytoo I could get into a whole side discussion about Comic Sans. Basically, it’s used EVERYWHERE, on books, posters, signs, mugs, labels, information, etc, but it is not appropriate everywhere – in fact the only appropriate (IMO) use of Comic Sans is in comic books or in things related to children. I honestly say it’s everywhere because it IS, not one day goes by that I don’t see it being used inappropriately.

It’s hard to relate this to others, as I’m a designer and thus I’m more aware of fonts and such. Seeing Comic Sans sticks out so prominently to me, and it makes me cringe each and every time. I like to say it’s similar to seeing a gross zombie, once per day, hiding somewhere where you least expect it. And then the next day, and the next, and the next.

Inappropriate locations of Comic Sans from my recent memory:
– A restaurant menu
– Ten million Lost Dog or Piano Lesson posters
– On the side of a commercial truck (ugh)
– On the label of a local chip dip
– Name tags. Every single nametag in existence is done in Comic Sans.
– Oh, all of Booster Juice (smoothie place)‘s branding is in Comic Sans.

Using Comic Sans means they do not know anything about fonts, or design, or branding. It also sends the message that one is cheap, as CS is a default font versus having to pay to license a truly appropriate font. There are millions of other fonts that could be used, ones which would REALLY help distinguish one’s poster/brand, yet so many people give in to using Comic Sans. It’s really a shame.

Then again, all the bad design helps to make good design jump out and dazzle you, so it’s not all that bad. But still, I can’t help but cringe and comment when I see it being used. At least I know as a result my family will never use it, and that makes me happy :)

@rooeytoo: What I mean is it’s not “functional” everywhere, which is where it seems to pop up (as @dynamicduo illustrates). As I said, its’ major problem is that it is very overused (and used inappropriately).

Good typographic design is about much more than readability. That’s only one side of the coin. The other side involves finding a synergy between the imagery (photos, illustrations, graphics), the color palette, your audience, and the message. Also, what is the function of that particular media? – Poster, postcard, advertisment, etc are all read and handled differently. Comic Sans (and other overused fonts) are very often chosen independent of any consideration of these factors.

It’s kind of like how at every cheesy wedding the DJ has to play We Are Family when the bridal party gets up and dances. It’s a tired and generic choice that has little to do with that specific “family” that is up dancing.

That’s interesting because I don’t see all those things, but I can understand what you are saying. I have been involved with dogs for many years and I look at a dog that most people would see as cute and I pick it apart, it has a bad bite, a light eye, weak front, or I can tell it is a nut case.

So I guess knowledge can sometimes make us miss what everyone else is seeing.

It has been a long time since I took a typography class so I must be losing my eye. We did have to create (by hand, no computers and in india ink) a complete font on poster board using 2 objects, I used a tennis racket and a ball, each could be used only one time. It was fun, I had mine almost finished, was on the t and my cat jumped up on the table, hit the ink bottle, it went all over the board and I had to start all over again.

Not all name tags, @dynamicduo. Not those I’ve ever had anything to do with, nor my son, who first sensitized me to CS while he was taking a typography class.

There are teachers who will send home full-page course syllabi in CS. I think they must think it looks casual, fun, and nonthreatening. I think it’s the typographic equivalent of babytalk.

Here’s a Comic Sans Inappropriate Use recap, all of these I’ve seen in the past few days:

- On a home’s For Sale sign, the agent’s name. Ugh.
– The entire body of a respected author’s publication.
– And it seems to be the official fonts of crafters everywhere – I went to a quilting show yesterday and I had to consciously block it all out, it was EVERYWHERE, banners, signs, even on one of the quilts!

@dynamicduo. “the entire body”....surely you don’t you mean the text?

In the publishing world, we call the main portion of text the body, as opposed to the headline, byline, etc. But yes, I did mean the text. Although I have seen Comic Sans tattoos in tattoo shops… that one would make me cry, if I actually cared.

I know this is an old question, but I just “stumbled” upon this site and I think it is really neat for typography people so I thought I would tack it onto the end of this thread.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/toolbar/#url=http%2525253A//www.typogenerator.net/

@rooeytoo: that’s awesome!

Yep, stumbeupon.com. has some of the neatest stuff. Glad you liked it.

I am a photographer and I tend to ask myself that all the time when I shoot models who want marketing materials. I found this font called “Saginaw” and man did it look sexy next to her in the photo…check it out. Hope this helps.