Selecting a Font...

I am going to be spending most of this upcoming weekend working on the layout for my Everglades book. I have a basic layout already done but now need to pick a font to use for both the text of the book as well as the photo captions and notes. Any suggestions on resources that would help with the selection process? Not necessarily a use this... or use that... but something on the theory of font use or at least something that might help me get thinking about it.

Thanks!

Drew

Drew,

Before & After magazine has a few free PDF downloads that might prove helpful.
http://www.bamagazine.com/

Drew - I have not done it recently, but a number of years ago I found information about fonts by searching desktop publishing fonts on the web. I also had a book that is not longer on my shelf on desktop publishing that I found very useful. Maybe go to the library and see if there is a book on desktop publishing.

As I remember there was a discussion about readability. The serif fonts are reported to be easier to read than the sans serif fonts. Some suggest that headlines, headers, chapter titles and such should be in a sans serif font whilethe text should be in a serif font. This information was from many years ago, but I am assuming that they would be true today. If you look at a publication like the New York Times you will see this same pattern - headlines are in Helvitica while the text is in Times New Roman.

Drew, check out books by Robin Williams. Look at "The Non-Designer's Design Book" and "The Non-Designer's Type Book".