Best Architectural Font Search

[bowlingbrad]

We are now on a quest for the best Architectural font that includes all of the standard architectural fixins.... Diameter symbol, plus/minus symbol, centerline symbol... We currently use Graphite-Regular which doesn't have all of our desired symbols :(

Suggestions?

[david.kingham]

I was going to post this thread http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=39830 but you replied in it so I guess you've seen it allready lol

[dpollard909366]

no more architect simulated text! my fav font right now is the simple Swis721 BT, don't think it has any symbols though. sorry.

[DanielleAnderson]

We use good old fashioned RomanS...boring, simple, gets the job done. :)

[patricks]

We normally use Tekton which is okay, but it doesn't have the apostrophe symbol, so we don't use it for dimensions. Arial does that duty.

I like the Architext font, but I haven't really gotten around to implementing it into our project templates for both notes and dimensions.

[Rols]

We've been using Architxt Narrow with pretty good results. I'm not sure what it has for special characters, though.

[patricks]

Hey can you post that up? My one caveat with Architext is that it seems a bit "fat"

[todd.69291]

I found that the attached architectural font works well. I seems to give us what we need.

[Brian Myers]

I used to use a font named ArchT that was easy to read and looked good.

Yet its important to remember fonts are the simply to communicate information. While some of them look really good as handwritten or architectural styles, the only reason these styles ever existed was because designers couldn't write any neater by hand and it gave an artistic flare. Its ironic in this age of computers that we try to step back to something that looks like it was done by hand just because that's the way its always been done and we've gotten comfortable looking at that on plans... especially since we have so many beautiful, artistic looking, easy to read fonts we could choose from.

This just seemed like a good thread to point out that industry oddity....

Anyway, check out this zip file: http://www.cadresource.com/library/fonts/arfont.zip It has a few choices including ArchT.

[modulor]

I used be proud of my hand-lettering, but I think that it has no place in CAD today. Been trying to convince my office to stop using arch fonts for years... they don't fax well, look odd when larger than 1/4", and I hate having to set up our consultants with them..every time!
Swiss or Arial are clean and easy to read, and everyone has them loaded.

The other thing is, why do we keep using ALL CAPS FOR CON DOCS?

Erik




This just seemed like a good thread to point out that industry oddity....

[Tom Dorner]

I used be proud of my hand-lettering, but I think that it has no place in CAD today. Been trying to convince my office to stop using arch fonts for years... they don't fax well, look odd when larger than 1/4", and I hate having to set up our consultants with them..every time!
Swiss or Arial are clean and easy to read, and everyone has them loaded.

The other thing is, why do we keep using ALL CAPS FOR CON DOCS?

Erik
See this post for the ALL CAPS issue.

http://forums.augi.com/showthread.php?t=35882&highlight=caps

The answer seems to be "because that is the way we have always done it"

[dpollard909366]

ALL CAPS....

I think the reason we use all caps is because we typically don't note in prose, so we don't necessarily have any standard rules of capitilization. Alot of marking up would be in deciding which letters should be capitilized 'West Elevation' or 'West elevation'

We keep it simple by only having 26 letter characters to choose from. Capital is much easier to read and is less likely to cause discrepencies with other lines or numbers
(letter l versus letter L.)

I digress.

arial or swiss

[david.kingham]

Hey can you post that up? My one caveat with Architext is that it seems a bit "fat"
Go to the link I posted, the architext narrow and architext dimension is in the zip file that I uploaded

[Andre Baros]

We're using Revit as a clean breaking point to drop the fake handwritten look, and right now like Arial because of it's universality and simplicity... and it's actually not a bad font.

Here's a link that can help you make your decision, especially the button that says "special chr"
http://www.stcassociates.com/lab/fontbrowser.html

[Wes Macaulay]

We're using Revit as a clean breaking point to drop the fake handwritten look, and right now like Arial because of it's universality and simplicity... and it's actually not a bad font.True enough... we're trying to make the drawings appear as something they aren't. But some people think this style communicates better, so be it...

[dpollard909366]

The way I see it is using the architect font in revit is pretty silly. Old school lettering was about the art of the craft and any attempt to recreate it with a computer is simply nostalgic.

Thats this guys opinion.

[dpollard909366]

architext reminds me of "wood grain" on vinyl siding.

[Exar Kun]

We were still using an ISO font in AutoCAD thanks to the previous CAD manager here. We took advantage of the switch to Revit to change to Arial. It's clean and simple. It's the same font used in correspondance in this office and it's very widespread so there's no substitution problems with the export to AutoCAD dwgs for consultants.

[bowlingbrad]

....art of the craft...

I guess that it's us 'older guys' that want to hold on to the past. We used to take pride in our hand lettering. I think the 'newer guys' may not have the same feeling towards lettering as we once did.

Heck, I just found a Leroy Lettering set that I'm showing to all of the youngsters and they can't believe we used to use these.

This guys opinion.

[dpollard909366]

nostalgia brad... nostalgia. live in the now man!

[Andre Baros]

Brad, in school they made us hand letter all our papers (not just our drawings)... which is just one more reason I don't care for lettering any more. Nor drawing on linen, nor using a Mayline, nor sticky back, nor erasing with a blade, nor specifying fresco's for barrel vaulted ceilings.

But if you find a font with all the right characters, please do share what it is.

[patricks]

Typing in all caps saves me a bunch of Shift key strokes with my left pinky finger while typing notes.

Another thing that I do that very few others seem to do is I right-justify notes with leaders coming off the right side (notes on the left side of the detail), and left justify notes with leaders coming off the left side (notes on the right side of the detail). To me it looks neater to have all the leader lines aligned on each side. I don't like to see the notes on the left side of the detail all left-justified with the leaders beginning at numerous different justification points.

[bowlingbrad]

Brad, in school they made us hand letter all our papers (not just our drawings)... which is just one more reason I don't care for lettering any more. Nor drawing on linen, nor using a Mayline, nor sticky back, nor erasing with a blade, nor specifying fresco's for barrel vaulted ceilings.

But if you find a font with all the right characters, please do share what it is.

I don't miss my first architectural job either... I used to be called The Eradicator

[daniel.dennin]

RE: All Caps

The all caps is a (much needed) holdover from the drawing board. Drawings, on paper, in soft-copies, or in any other form must accurately transmit information. With capitol letters, there is less question as to what a character is; g and 9 for instance.
This condition is actually worse today because while there was a limit as far as the ability to reduce drawings on the board, in CAD one can take a roll-size drawing and reduce it to an 8.5 X 11 sheet.
Like dear old Dad said to me "There are times you'll do things that don't seem to have a point; just remember they've been doing this for a couple of hundred years and you may not see what experience has taught them. There are also times that some (euphemism for donkey) gets put in charge of something and has you doing things for absolutely no reason at all."

D-day

[rhunter.97108]

Thanks, Dave. I've been looking for that narrow dimension font for months.

[david.kingham]

No problem, glad i could help!