I saw this column/post about the font used by Barack Obama on the campaign trail, and it got me thinking about the reasons why we chose the font that we did. The point in the column is that the Obama campaign’s use of the font “Gotham” is strategic, and that it evokes certain feelings that other fonts don’t. Like this:
Image found here.
Comic Sans is too silly, Times Roman is too serious, but Gotham is just right. (Goldilocks, anyone?)
This got me thinking about our own fonts that we considered using for our wedding invitations (and other paper goods).
From top to bottom: Bickham Script Pro Semibold, Vladimir script, Penman Script, JaneAusten and Tagettes. All either standard on MS Windows, or available at dafont.com.
Tagettes just seemed perfect to us- not too loopy and formal, yet not too informal either. And a little bit of a vintage flair.
What fonts are you using in your wedding stationery?
I just purchased a car, and one of the forms they gave me was in Comic Sans. As someone who did forms for a while, I had a hard time taking it seriously…funny how it translates.
Tagettes is lovely…and the easiest to read!
We used century gothic because we were trying to give off a casual/modern feel. Another design note, we used mostly lowercase letters and a “+” instead of “and” or “&”. So our monogram looked like j+b. It worked out lovely and I think gave people a feel for the wedding even as early as the envelope for our Save the Dates. But then again, I’m a font geek! So many wonderful designs are totally butchered because the designer uses a font that doesn’t jive with the look.
Ooo! Fonts! Typefaces! Hooray!
So the link in my name takes you to my blog which features my two favorite fonts, Helvetica and Futura–for whatever reason, I find both of them immensely aesthetically pleasing. So this topic is sooo up my alley. But I knew going into the invitation design process that I’d have to compromise with my traditionally-minded mom, so I knew both of those fonts were out for the official wedding stationery (but they’ll play a part in other parts of the wedding).
Because I wanted a whole “classic with a modern twist” angle, we purchased the invites from Crane’s and I sat down with the custom design book to pick out my absolute two favorite fonts. The final verdict was to use Coronet (a serif, small-caps typeface) for the majority of the text, and then use Baskerville Italic Lowercase for our names, and throughout the rest of the package as the accent font. Seeing them in the proof I was very excited, and apparently they arrived today at my parents’ house and I can’t wait to see how they actually materialized!
Were I to go with a script, I would definetely gravitate towards Taggettes myself as it has just the right amount of whimsy to it–although as an Austen nerd, I’m digging her namesake typeface as well. Great choice!
@Angel: At my first job, every single one of my bosses (save for my direct manager) used Comic Sans in email communication. I hated it–it looked so unprofessional.
I went a little crazy with the font hunt. It took hours… well, days… for me to decide. I am a designer (not graphic) so I know what I am looking for but I did not have the perfect font on hand. I decided to go with Kravitz (for STD and monogram for my thank you notes) and Bernhard Fashion (all in uppercase) for the invitations.
I sent them to the printer and after seeing the proof I became extremely gitty. I have spent more time looking for fonts than anything else on my list. My friend thought I was crazy. Hmm, I totally don’t think so.
i use century gothic on EVERYTHING. so it made sense to use it on our wedding paper. we used that plus brock script (from dafont.com). hot.
I use Comic Sans every single day, on all of my documents… but then, I happen to teach first grade. So I guess I agree with the above comments!
The names on our invitations are Updock, which is my new favorite font! It’s very curly, which I was going for.
My graphic designer fiance created a new font for our invites! It looks like handwritten print and is seriously awesome looking.
Tagettes is a great font. I almost used it on my invitations, except I couldn’t get over the capital “F”. It looked too much like the capital “J” so I went with a less scripty stype.
I love Tagettes for almost everything, except the capital E and the space that the capital K takes up. So sad – we have both.
We downloaded a couple fonts from dafont.com for our invites. We used dear Joe four to create a monogram with our initials. We really liked their capital letters, but the lowercase ones were a bit too hard to read. We used adorable for our names and a third font for the rest of the text (i can’t remember the name for that one).
Funny, I just decided today on the fonts for at least our address labels, and as much ‘paper’ stuff as possible. Monterey BT, and Bell MT. I found that Murray Hill is super close to Monterey, just not as flourishy.
we used the jane austen and garamond, i seriously became obsessed with fonts
I’m so glad to see that Century Gothic is used by others, too! I LOVE that font for so many reasons and new I wanted it for one of our fonts. We used CG about 90% of the time, and did “headlines” and other small bits in Vladimir Script.
We used Avenir for everything except our names- for that we used Zapfino.
We splurged a little bit on Feel script http://www.veer.com/products/typedetail.aspx?image=UMT0000300 … It just made me happy every time I see it (still does), and I’m so glad we decided to go with it. LOVE!
we used different variations of bickham script pro, depending on what it was used for we changed it in Illustrator. It worked out well!
And I totally love type. 
Adobe Caslon Pro for save the dates (small caps, ital flourishes.. yum)
Chaparral Pro + Bickham for one engagement party invite
http://www.paratype.com/fstore/default.asp?fcode=1433&search=Chaparral+Pro
Burgues script for call outs and cake monogram
http://www.veer.com/search/results.aspx?keyword=Burgues%20Script&producttype=TYP&pricemodel=RM%2CRF
I’m not sure what companion face to use on the invites with Burgues.. I’m hopeful that either caslon or centaur will work nicely… we’ll see!
I am a total font addict too, and tested probably 50 different script fonts for our names before finally settling on Fete Regular:
http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/wilton/fete/
It has the very ornate, formal look that I wanted, with just a touch of playfulness.
I knew I wanted the rest of the text to be in Poor Richard, an old favorite of mine. Strangely, I seem to have a slightly different version of it than the ones sold online, and I really prefer my version (it has a cooler lowercase “g”). So I created an image with selected text from my invite to show you http://s247.photobucket.com/albums/gg125/blushingaudrey/?action=view¤t=invitefonts.jpg
I do love Tagette and Jane Austen, as well as Burgues and Dear Joe–I may have to add those to my font wishlist!
Tagettes is so pretty and perfect. I haven’t seen it before either, which is refreshing. I’m another person who thinks if you get happy when you see your typeface, and it resonates deep with your asthetic sense of beauty, you have found something wonderful to add joy to your life.
Also, there are websites devoted to people who hate comic sans.
Ms. Dahlia, Detroit/Cleveland Age and Occupation: 24, PhD Student Fiance's Age and Occupation: 24, IT System Administrator Engagement Date: December 31, 2006 Wedding Date: May 2008 Blogging Since: September 19, 2007 Venue: United Methodist Cathedral & historic downtown hotel in Cleveland About Me: I enjoy cooking, dancing and swimming. I am a geek and apply game theory to my everyday life. Winter is my favorite time of year, especially when spent curled up with good coffee and a book by Madeleine L'Engle.
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