Arial... and death to anyone who changes it back to city blue print.

City Blueprint = the Comic Sans of construction documents

Arial Narrow.

We roll hard at LBBA.

Open Sans.

Keep it clean.

Arial. 'nuff said.

I worked my first job for an architect who did all suburban house work, everything was in that faux-handwriting block letters (is that the City Blueprint?) - including the website. Painful...

Calibri.

century gothic 

balkins uses comic sans

Arial Narrow as well. We tried to make the switch over to Myriad but it ended up not being worth all the hassle and initial inconsistencies. 

For working drawings, you can't go wrong with Arial or some common variant. Make sure you use something that everybody has on their computer, so it doesn't become an issue when exporting your drawings to a client or consultant. Nobody should have to install some precious proprietary font on their computer just to open your drawings.

.

Akzidenz Grotesk, Replica Sans, Aperçu, DIN and so on. There's so many decent typefaces to use for clarity in presentation.

Arial, Univers and Calibri are terrible in my opinion. Cheapskate, Facist and boring respectively.

futura

Not a bad choice at all urbanity, Kubrick used it on everything and Nike Just did it.

Whats the point of using non traditional fonts that differ quite minimally from standard styles such as Arial and Calibri? IMO contractors and subs will not notice the difference at all on a set of CDs. On other sets of drawings and during other phases of design sure, I get that. But like David said earlier, using fonts that everyone doesn't have easy access too can create timely obstacles. 

I'm using Walkway Expand Semi, these days for titles and labels.

Arial Narrow

RomanS

Arial. All caps...... Why all caps? because if you type in all caps everything fits between the 1/8" parrallel lines, nothing goes below the bottom....for all you milliniels who use lower case letters in Construction. Drawings.....If I ever catch one of you fucks I will smack you silly....learn to draft god damnit.

Hey now, poor typography is not limited to any one generation.

I've dealt with plenty of old fucks who don't see the beauty of all-caps notation.

I've heard more and more people complain about using all caps on drawings. Usually they claim that it is easier to read blocks of text in title case than it is in all caps.

I tell them to stop writing blocks of text on their drawings. If your notations contain more than a few words or short phrases, you're writing too much. Chances are you could have redone the drawing to be clearer, or your writing things on the drawings that belong in the specs.

Oh yeah ... Arial. 

but who really reads these drawings? graphically it just looks better all caps. like step away and squint while looking at text ......i like text justified to the side of the call-out. it throws me off when its left justified and the line or arrow are to the right.

The reason people use Arial is because its clean and its the default Revit Font....

romans

...we do a lot of concrete work-

for all you milliniels who use lower case letters in Construction. Drawings

Right, because that's definitely a millennial thing. Dang kids! With their phones and their jeans and their facespace, trying to figure out who they are!

no Bench, it really is, because if you were old enough to learn drafting on paper you would understand why All Caps is used and it does not mean we are angry.

but, I am often angry when typing out CDs.

haha. yes I agree. READ THIS GOD DAMN BUILDER!!!!. wonder what would happen if I put exclamation points after Zoning references or Question marks on items I know examiners like to object to?

Bedroom, 180 SF, 18 SF Light, 9 SF Air? or Fire Rated Door? or EXIT?

i would like to see a movement towards more honest drafting notes.

<---- CLOSED CELL BACKER ROD.  IF YOU USE AN OPEN CELL BACKER ROD, I WILL SET THE HOUNDS OF HELL UPON YOU.  IF I SEE YELLOW STUFF ON SITE I KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!

Most hand lettering even by architects resembles comic sans...

Nope...block lettering looks very little like comic sans

+1 curtkram

I get so tired of answering RFIs when the information is already in the specs so my note would be more like this ...

<----------- BACKER ROD. ALL THE REST OF THE STUFF YOU NEED TO KNOW IS IN THE SPECS. YES THAT BIG BOOK THAT SAYS "PROJECT MANUAL" ON THE FRONT (THE ONE YOU LEAVE IN THE JOB TRAILER FOR A DOOR STOP) CONTAINS THE SPECS. IT WILL TELL YOU WHETHER YOU SHOULD BE USING OPEN CELL OR CLOSED CELL OR BI-CELLULAR BACKER ROD. SEND ME A SUBMITTAL WITH THE WRONG TYPE, OR SEND ME AN RFI ASKING ME WHAT TYPE, AND I WILL SET THE HOUNDS OF HELL UPON YOU.

All my notes should read:

<----- WHY BOTHER, YOU'LL JUST SEND ME THE SAME CUTSHEET FROM YOUR LAST "SIMILAR" PROJECT ANYWAYS.

Nolan.

Because fuck you guys and your default settings.

Non Sequitur wins.

^Cheers

Helvetica for presentation drawings, Arial/ Roman for Permit / CD

remember when Bank Gothic was hot?

no.  bank gothic sucks.  must have been the 80s?

mid 90's in the midwest

^that explains why one of my professors used it all the time.

we use helvetica.  easy to read.  tracking is a little wide for my taste as even a concise note can get kind of long and or bulky on the page. 

you think helvetica is bad, try nolan.

futura bold italic, 72 point, blood red.  kruger style.

Arial Narrow, which took a lot of convincing of people to move away from the Revit standard of Arial.  I like that it takes up less space (I use it in Word, Excel, Bluebeam, etc.).

I always joke about wanting to produce a drawing set with everything typed out in Wingdings, though...