More popular families

Helvetica is a common sans serif typeface. It has such a clean look it can be used in any typographic situation. It is based on other sans serif faces from the 19th century like News Gothic and Franklin Gothic. It is part of the 19th century grotesque sans serif group. The characters of Helvetica have a large x-height and short ascenders and descenders. For this reason it is necessary to have large amounts of vertical space between lines of text. “The elegant shapes of the compressed letters give an aggressive straightforward look to a message” (Wolfe 14). Helvetica condensed and compressed are great for both text and headlines on industrial brochures, logos, and exhibit art. "Use bold weights for strong, forceful headlines, and medium and light weights for practically any application you want" ("ABC's" 67).

Optima is a sans serif typeface although it is formed based on the classic roman letter. It should be considered an elegant serifless roman. Instead of a serif, the end of each stroke has a flair and cupped terminal. Some of the letters are very wide so it is sometimes necessary to add extra tracking to words. Optima “brings a friendly presence to any printed piece” (Wolfe 16). It’s not advised to use Optima as a body text since there are no serifs, and it should not be grouped with other sans serif faces with calligraphic flair. However, Optima is perfect for short blocks of copy and benefits greatly from generous line spacing ("ABC's" 79). Use Optima for community service brochures, announcements, advertising and corporate promotional literature (Wolfe 17).

Times Roman is a serif typeface that is commonly used in large quantities of text. It’s based on Old Dutch Style characteristics and was designed to be reproduced in the London Times. The heavy thin strokes on each character were used to accommodate coarse newsprint paper, and the characters are slightly thin to increase character count. Times Roman mixes well with many other faces but for contrast try using a heavy sans serif like Helvetica Black. “Use Times Roman with the confidence that its informative character will function in almost any application” (Wolfe 21). Times Roman can be combined with almost any sans serif face and many serif faces as well. Mixing Times Roman with similar faces like Plantin, Janson, Caslon and Baskerville should be avoided ("ABC's" 94).