At the end of December, lists crop up around the Internet summarizing the best fonts of the previous year. 2008 is no exception. I’m building a re-cap.
The first list that came into my RSS-Feed was Ivo’s (in German, with good images). See it at Fontwerk.com
List number two is I Love Typography’s, which is great, but which includes at least two typefaces that were released in mid-2007 (Blaktur and Soho). I don’t know how I feel about that yet. At least he had a shout-out for Skolar, which will surely be one of the best typefaces of 2009. Although I have a hat that I’d like to throw into that ring as well…
FontShop takes list-making one step further, creating end-of-the-year products that people can buy. 2008 is the second year in a row for this (Forgot 2007 already?). See what they do on a specially-devoted FontStars website. Mad props to whoever selected Tom Grace’s Givry, a 2008 release from TypeTogether.
Some lists are not up to this same level of snuff. Some lists are downright not good, and clearly not meant for the typographically-included. Like this list, which was linked to on DesignObsever (although I think that they liked it…).
Now that I near the end of this post, I must admit that I’m beginning to tire of “best fonts of the year” lists. I mean, Typographica sort of had that rolled up by 2005. There, you can still see several years’ worth of great images and text documenting the typographic landscape of the mid-2000s (like this, this, and this). No one else matches that level of awesomeness yet. I think that it would be even cooler to expand to new frontiers. I for one, would relish a “best foundries of 2008” list far more. Who wants to write that one up?