: Is Fairfield considered a legible typeface? I was browsing around on linotype.com when I came across Fairfield which I instantly fell in love with. I would seriously like to use Fairfield for

@Nickens508

For print use, it looks fairly legible to me. However, if you're using it for body text as a screen font, there are some possible issues. These don't necessarily rule it out as a screen font, but you should be aware of them:


In your screenshot, the hinting is poor, which is most noticeable in the bottom line. In combination with the thin horizontal serifs, this causes serifs to sometimes disappear. Notice that the top serifs are missing on the d, l, and is, and the left half of the bar of the t in "sit" is blurred out. For some reason, this is also a problem in the second line, with missing to-left serifs on r, m, and i. Missing serifs can impede legibility (since it doesn't have the accomodations that sans-serif fonts make), as well as leave ugly gaps.

However, it's possible that you took that screenshot in a program that doesn't hint properly, and the actual font does have proper hinting.
In some of the styles, lowercase letters' ascenders are only slightly higher than capital letters:

Screen fonts often slightly exaggerate the height of ascenders, which helps distinguish "l" (lowercase L) from "I" and "1".
The bowls of certain letters appear to have no overshoot, the bowls don't dip very far when they join the stem, and the serifs are perfectly horizontal. In combination, this means that with small fonts, the bowl could blend into the serif, as with the bold p (notice the top looks flat):

This is atypical and could potentially impede legibility.


(For headings, the font size is larger so these are not issues.)

Vote Up Vote Down