Weight Duplexing, Condensed Tabulars, and Multiple Enclosures
More typographic tastiness (see the earlier post) from Hoefler & Frere-Jones with a writeup on Choosing Fonts for Annual Reports. Lots of useful design help and ideas for anyone who works with numbers, whether actual annual reports or (more likely) fighting with Excel and PowerPoint. For instance, using enclosures to frame numbers, or knock them out:
Another helpful trick is using two weights so that you can avoid placing a line between them:
Or using a proper condensed face when you have to invite too many of your numerical friends:
At any rate, I recommend the full article for anyone working with numbers, either for the introduction to setting type (for the non-designers) or a useful reminder of some of the solutions (for those who fret about these things on a regular basis).