best font for very small type

Nephron,

In small sizes, I've always been partial to sans-serif faces because I think they're the most readable. After I read your post, I did an experiment by typing a line of text, then duplicating it several times. I reduced it to 8 points, then applied 5 different type faces. By far, the best one was Arial, followed by Helvetica. But this is a matter of personal preference, and you should do some experimenting yourself.

-Dennis

As Dennis said, Arial is a good choice. Experiment with Arial Narrow as well. It will give you more letters per line.

Walt

Nomina makes the Italian phonebook really legible with very small characters.

French PTT choose a standard font in a small size and of course most of the oldies asked for the big book because the small one was quite impossible to use.
As far as I know, PTT dropped the small book.
Recognizing that they choose a sad font was too simple,they prefer to say: these oldies are old fashioned, they don't accept changes.

I know that Nomina is the property of the Italian company but was it really impossible to buy the rights of use?

Remember, we are the country which claims at the face of the world: "Impossible n'est pas Français".
With public administrations, "Impossible" is too often "Possible".

I don't know if these remarks are politically correct 😉

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE lundi 12 mai 2008 19:25:42)

I like that Pennino face. It's got a sort of Lord Of The Rings quality to it.

-Dennis

As far as I know, many typographer think that one of the best font for this kind of problem is the one used to print the italian phone numbers book.

Alas I don't know its name and if it is available to all of us.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE lundi 12 mai 2008 16:47:53)

I found it:

http://www.demacchi.it/english/english.html

alas, it is not distributed.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE lundi 12 mai 2008 17:05:58)

Yvan,

I just check the site you referenced. Those are some gorgeous faces!

Walt