Good fonts for indexes?

[Soliloquy]

I'm trying to cobble together a design guide for playing cards (yes, I promise to post it for suggestions and revisions) and would like to hear everybody's favorite fonts to use for the indexes (indices).  Obviously, tall, not too wide, and easy to read fonts are preferred.

[xela]

It would 100% depend on the style of the deck. For minimalist designs you want sans serif.

[Don Boyer]

I'm trying to cobble together a design guide for playing cards (yes, I promise to post it for suggestions and revisions) and would like to hear everybody's favorite fonts to use for the indexes (indices).  Obviously, tall, not too wide, and easy to read fonts are preferred.

It's a big challenge, making that guide.  There's enough "variances" that for some, they'd consider the guide useless.  But, for a first-time designer, it's actually a good idea to have a guide to follow.

Fonts/typefaces definitely depend on the design.  By and large, a professional design won't have a cookie-cutter typeface - they'll create one specifically for the deck or they'll use an existing standard (USPC, Arrco, Hoyle, etc.).  My general preference would be for a minimally-serif or sans-serif font, easily read.  A common design choice for professionally-designed cards is to use sans-serif numbers - and specifically, to properly center the "10" over its pip.  It's the only two-digit card value and handling that seems to throw some designers off.  Also, in my opinion, it's best to specifically design the "6" and "9" so they're not identical when rotated 180 degrees.  It reduces the likelihood for confusing them.

[Joshua Robinson]

A good one is Comic Sans I kid I kid. A simple New Times Romans looks good

[MrMollusk]

Comic sans or Bleeding Cowboys


But seriously, I agree with Alex. Ornate pips may look neat, but they look kind of cheesy unless they meld with the rest of the design. You could also create you own typeface by designing custom A, K, J, Q, 10, 9, 8, etc.

[Don Boyer]

A good one is Comic Sans I kid I kid. A simple New Times Romans looks good

a) It's "Times New Roman", not "New Times Romans".
b) I've never seen Times New Roman used as an index font in a proper custom deck.  I've seen it or something similar on the box now and then, such as with Sean Whelan's Bicycle Galvanic, but never in the indices.  The general practice is go custom or go standard instead of using some font you can download, or worse, that comes with Microsoft Word (shiver)...

Comic sans or Bleeding Cowboys


But seriously, I agree with Alex. Ornate pips may look neat, but they look kind of cheesy unless they meld with the rest of the design. You could also create you own typeface by designing custom A, K, J, Q, 10, 9, 8, etc.

You do realize that all I'm seeing here on that image is "Please go to funnyjunk to view this image", right?  It's better to download the image and attach it than to use a web link that can end up broken without notice.  If the files are too big, copy them to a free photo-sharing account somewhere and use those links instead.  The limit here is 5Mb per image, max of five images to a post.

[Emmanuel]

I tend to prefer sans-serif over serif and modern over traditional. However, the familiar slab-serif typeface of playing card indices is as close to perfection as you can get.

The typeface is a great example of form following function: early printing processes (like wood blocks) tended to yield thicker weight of letters, and the serifs acted as guides for proper alignment.

[MrMollusk]

You do realize that all I'm seeing here on that image is "Please go to funnyjunk to view this image", right?  It's better to download the image and attach it than to use a web link that can end up broken without notice.  If the files are too big, copy them to a free photo-sharing account somewhere and use those links instead.  The limit here is 5Mb per image, max of five images to a post.

Weird. I didn't even get it from funnyjunk. I hate that site.
Eh. It was a dumb joke anyways ._.

[xela]

slab-serif

That's what I was trying to remember.

Emmanuel is spot on. Sci-fi/minimalist should in most cases be techno style fonts or sans-serif. Save the serifs for old-timey looks!

[Don Boyer]

I tend to prefer sans-serif over serif and modern over traditional. However, the familiar slab-serif typeface of playing card indices is as close to perfection as you can get.

The typeface is a great example of form following function: early printing processes (like wood blocks) tended to yield thicker weight of letters, and the serifs acted as guides for proper alignment.

I'm no expert, but I'd consider your font "lightly serif".  The horizontal lines on top of the J, top and bottom of the K, bottom of the A and the 4 - that's why.  It's not all dots and curlicues, but it's not the most sans-serif font out there (which would arguably be the Helvetica family).  This font I'm using right now in the message appears "Helvetic" in terms of serifs.  But all that's just the opinion of a layman who reads a lot! 

Weird. I didn't even get it from funnyjunk. I hate that site.
Eh. It was a dumb joke anyways ._.

The reason it appears as such is probably because the guy who posted it before you got it from funnyjunk, probably by linking to the image on the site, and the site used a bot to find the link and sever it, replacing it with instructions to go to their site if you wanted to see it.  It's why downloading from there and uploading here is better than linking - eventually, many links will go dead for one reason or another.