the times they are a-...

So, I've got to T - and I was trying to find a way of avoiding Times. Because (and do please correct me if I'm wrong) Times is the serif equivalent of Helvetica. It surrounds us. We see it everywhere. Sometimes used well. But more often than not, used without thinking - simply because it's there. It's successful though, there's no denying that.

And, talking of success, I really can't avoid including Trajan - can I? Because it's found its way onto this blog before: and more than once, which is more than you can say for every other font in this series. It first appeared here last summer. Then, just before Christmas, Richard put me on to the little video about it being the movie font (which is well worth watching again). And if that weren't enough, it tried to sneak in early by masquerading as a J-font. So, love it or loathe it, it has to be here, doesn't it?

Designed by Carol Twombly for Adobe in 1989, it is - as they say - a modern classic.

My second T wasn't quite so easy to decide upon, though. There are lots of fonts that begin with T, that's for sure - like Tabitha, Taffy, Talking Drum and Tom Boy. All useful if you've got to knock out a poster for the village fete, say. But nothing much to get a serious designer's juices flowing.

I was sorely tempted to include Torino Italic after Mike Dempsey sang its praises last week. But, as beautiful as it is, I thought we needed a little grist to counter the 'perfection' of Trajan. Here instead, therefore, is...

The first cuts of Trade Gothic were designed by Jackson Burke in 1948. He continued to work on further weights and styles until 1960 while he was director of type development for Mergenthaler-Linotype in the USA. Trade Gothic does not display as much unifying family structure as other popular sans serif font families, but this dissonance adds a bit of earthy naturalism to its appeal. Trade Gothic is often seen in combination with roman text fonts, and the condensed versions are popular in the newspaper industry for headlines.

There we are then - suited to a T.