Re: Sans-serif free Unicode font (was Re: Ghostscript 9.15)

[Urs Liska]

Am 25.03.2015 um 18:58 schrieb Carl Sorensen:
> On 3/25/15 6:54 AM, "address@hidden" <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> > I think the fonts we're looking for should have a similarly classic or
> > old-fashioned look as Century.
> >
> > Maybe we should look for fonts that (optionally) ship with texlive.
> Hunting around for sans-serif fonts that work well with CenturySchoolbook,
> I found this:
>
> http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/13598/which-sans-serif-and-monospace
> -fonts-suit-century-schoolbook
>
>
> which recommends Franklin Gothic and Helvetica.  Neither one looks
> particularly good to me.

I think so too. But Franklin Gothic was a font I looked at for a longer 
time earlier today ...
Of course the question is always to find a font that is
- free
- good quality
- well equipped with multilingual characters
(- ideally it would also have a number of widths and weights)

> There is a large set of Google fonts, many of which are available under
> the SIL Open Font License (a free license).  You can see samples at
>
>
> http://www.google.com/fonts
>
>
> And filter for sans serif.

OK.  IISC these are web fonts but there are .otf files available in the 
repository.

> I think that the following show some promise:
>
> Alegreya Sans
> Open Sans
> Marmelad
> Droid Sans (Apache license)
>
> Some others recommend Oswald from google fonts.
>
> Of course, I'm really bad with making font decisions, but to my eye there
> aren't really *any* sans-serif fonts that go well with classical engraving.

Yes, I have this impression too.
I have seen contemporary scores make use of some rather stylized sans 
fonts - but that's something that can already been done, so nothing we 
should consider making the default.

It turned out that I recalled correctly that U.E. made use of sans-serif 
fonts in their titlings sometimes:

http://imslp.org/wiki/Variations_for_Piano,_Op.27_(Webern,_Anton)
http://imslp.org/wiki/4_Lieder,_Op.12_(Webern,_Anton)
http://imslp.org/wiki/Special:ImagefromIndex/313889


In general I wouldn't suggest using sans-serif fonts in score documents 
if it isn't for some special style ideas. But these aren't the target of 
a default font.
But we do have to ensure that the output of a (default) compilation 
doesn't depend on the availability of certain fonts on the user's system 
or on his settings. So we should find a good complement to Century, 
which isn't too easy.
It is so much about the pairing. I have a pair of fonts that I use all 
the time: Minion and Cronos, and I like that very much. But of course 
they are commercial fonts, and they look more modern than the default 
LilyPond appearance. Another quite nice combination (IMHO) is Linux 
Libertine and Linux Biolinum, but that doesn't fit too well with Century 
either.

I think most fonts on Googlefonts are too "modern" by intention. What I 
have in mind would probably be close to the old sans fonts like Franklin 
Gothic or Akzidenz Grotesk.

Urs

> Carl