Font thoughts (2)

A link to this page: http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/themefonts/ has just reached me by email, so I thought I'd share it with my fellow Forum users (as well as taking the opportunity to start a new thread – 120+ messages is rather long IMO).

Alfred

Click here]Javascript:;' onClick='window.open("http://www.sprouts.alphaphe.com/Serif/smileology.shtml","smileywindow","width=800,height =360,left=0,top=0,screenX=0,screenY=0,resizable=ye s,scrollbars=yes")' onMouseOver='window.status="Smiley shortcuts";return true' onMouseOut='window.status="";return true' onFocus='this.blur()[/url] for a pop-up guide to the 'smiley' shortcuts and the new markup code.

You know you have a serious font addiction when..........

* ....you have a folder on your HD with 1,2 gigabytes of fonts, and those
are only the *unsorted* ones

* ....your heart skips a beat when you see a cheap font CD in the computer
store

* ....you realize that even though the CD offers 1250 fonts, it will only
increase your total collection with 2%

* ....your computer isnt finished unzipping font collections when you get up
in the morning

* ....you try to find a specific font on your CDs, but you have so many font
CDs that you cannot even find the CD that the font is on

* ....you have more font management tools and font viewers installed than
emails received per day

* ....you are unable to help finding a cool font for your friend's birthday
invitation because you "never look at the fonts, just collect them"

* ....you are printing font previews and you run out of paper even if you
bought a stack of 10 feet of paper yesterday

* ....think that the font preview in Word is the coolest feature of any
software, period!

* ....you ask a lady/gentleman home to look at your font collection

* ....you are browsing the Yellow Pages - but not for blumbers or
autorepair - because you seem to maybe recall that there possibly was a cool
font there once, and you REALLY need to have it, just in case!

* ....you buy the latest Corel Draw suite for 360 dollars but you browse the
fonts first and it takes you 6 weeks to actually install Corel Draw

* ....you realize that in all the last 5 Corel Draw suites you have bought,
there was not one new font compared to your collection

* ....the list of fonts that cannot be deleted from Windows is longer than
the list of your buddies, and you cant even find your buddy list

* ....people you have never heard of contacts you out of the blue and ask
you to help them finding "Senatus Heavy Bold" and you send back the entire
family of 56 Senatus fonts (and 13 that only looks like Senatus)

* ....you achieve multiple orgasms when seeing your own handwriting as a
font because you learned how to use Font Creator 3.1

* ....your returning wet dream is to meet Gutenberg's crew who carved out
the typefaces for the first printed book

* ....you are on first name basis with the guy whop develops fonts for
printing money (and he's ugly as S###, but hey!! He makes the money fonts!!)

* ....you order broadband internet because "all those fonts from Yahoogroups
demand high-speed downloading, even though I am only in 23 font groups"

* ....your daily posting limit to all those 23 Yahoogroups is met before
lunch

* ....you make a general inquiry about a software that can compare files for
type and size, and people immediately respond "so your font collection is
growing, eh?"

* ....your first attempt at hacking the school's computer is not to improve
your grades or get a copy of an industrial strength 3D software, but to copy
all *.ttf files you can find

* ....you can make a list like this about font addiction and you realize
that most of the items are self experienced

==========================

By Glenn Folkvord (glenn@folkvord.net)
Feel free to forward, preferably with this addendum intact.

mjh,

That's cruel. I can identify with a number of these symptons. I hope admission is the first step towards a cure for my addiction?

Geoff Barns

G
Admission along with two stale cases HB.....
mjh
slurp

Terry,

Don't know what happened with your Rockwell PDF, but on my machine the fonts on the page showed up as something sans serif which I didn't recognize.

I do like Rockwell, but my personal favorite for a slab serif is Serifa (PDF attached). I use it extensively in my promotional pieces, instruction sheets, etc. for my (sideline) home-based rubber stamp manufacturing business. It's another Adrian Frutiger design and I remember reading that it's actually a serif version of Univers. A cursory comparison of the two just now would seem to validate that idea. I also remember reading that Lubalin Graph, another slab serif, is the serif version of Herb Lubalin's Avant Garde. Seemed to make sense, though I never put them side-by-side to compare. Especially Lubalin Graph, but also Avant Garde, are seeming a bit dated to me these days. Serifa, on the other hand, still strikes me as fairly contemporary. What's your take?

Bill

Well, we've been switched to Font Thoughts (2).

We have been through Sanserif fonts fairly exhaustively, though by no means completely. We've covered Serif (not SF) fonts scantily. Now what about Slab Serif Fonts (Egyptian-style [no, not hieroglyphics!].) [Had a bit of difficulty with the spelling of that one — not written any since I was last in Egypt.] I'll throw the first [font] family in the pot — Rockwell. There are quite a few varieties in this one. Do you like Rockwell; or have you other favourites?

Terry

Punster,

Thanks for starting a new thread. Definitely needed! :-)

I tried the link and couldn't get the page to fully load, clearly a Net 4.7 issue, as it also blocked my return to this site, which happens under certain circumstances with 4.7. I think you are using Net7 now, aren't you? Can you post your experience with it to the Netscape 7: http://www.serif.com/forum/ViewThrea...ad=4638&Numb=6 thread?

Sasha

Terry, Bill,

Thanks for posting the slab serif fonts. They aren't ones I have ever used, any of the slab serifs.

The Rockwell font was reminiscent of typewriting. I really like the Serifa one posted. It has a lighthearted bouncy look to me. I'm wondering if that may again be due to the large x-height.

Both of them have a very clean look. They are almost sans serif looking except... they have serifs! :-)

Sasha

Sasha, Bill,

Regarding serifs: From what I remember from my days at the London College of Printing, serifs originated approximately two thousand years ago. They had nothing whatsoever to do with printing (or typefaces which were many centuries into the future). When the Roman masons had to cut inscriptions into stone, to neaten off the ends of the letters the chisel was used at a right-angle to the main uprights (diagonals) to give it a smoother finish. Hence the beautifully shaped serif.

Sanserif was to come much later when printers desired many variations in design. With sanserif the original intention was that all strokes were of the same thickness. So as you say, slab-serif is like sanserif but with blocked serifs of the same weight as the rest of the letter. At least this was the original design, but obviously things have changed a bit since then.

However, don't take my word as authentic. You will probably want to do a little research of your own. I need a few more gigs of memory implanted now! Brain transplants are a very long way away.

PS — Here's a quote from the Encyclopaedia Britannica:
"The earliest known Roman majuscule, or capital, letters are in the script known as square capitals and can be seen chiseled in the stone of numerous surviving imperial Roman monuments. Square capitals are distinguished by their slightly heavier downstrokes and lighter upstrokes, and by their use of serifs, i.e., the short lines stemming at right angles from the upper and lower ends of the strokes of a letter. Square capitals set a standard for elegance and clarity in the Roman alphabet that has never been surpassed."



Terry

Sasha,

I think the feeling you're picking up from Serifa *is* due, in part, to the large x-height. I do like that aspect of it. Though I didn't post them, there are italic versions of the three lighter weights and a bold condensed as well. They're all available as part of the Corel Gallery font library I mentioned in an earlier post.

Bill

Terry

>>>> Why oh why are the PP8PDF files so large? <<<<

It's a very random thing, with PPPDF often producing much smaller files than other systems. I think it was Mike Keowler who produced a number of comparisons a while back. There was no logic as to why 'A' produced smaller files than 'B ' or vice versa.

Dave

Hi Bill,

I think the Serifa range is very close to Rockwell. And Serifa Thin is even lighter than Rockwell Light and Serifa Light. Quite useful.

I hate to have to admit this, but the attached PDF (Rockwell-2.PDF) was created with 5D to PDF. The reason being that any attempt I made to get a PP8PDF file down to a size that would be acceptable to the Forum size was doomed to failure. They were all too large. So...

I used M$ Word and typed the text on a custom size and then resorted to Save to PDF. Why oh why are the PP8PDF files so large? I know there was a lot on this before in another thread. Rockwell-2.PDF weighed in at 31KB (however, when I tried it conventionally in PP8PDF it came out at 364KB!). Then I thought I would have another go in PP8PDF this time Print..., changed the printer to 5D to PDF, and lo and behold the file (Rockwell-4PDF) came out at 31KB.

Anyway, have another look at the Rockwell Files (the JPG file was rubbish wasn't it!).

Terry

Hi Dave,

I battled with the size of the PPPDF files, having made several attempts. To get the Rockwell fonts to show up in Acrobat it was necessary to embed the fonts. And no way could I get a smaller file than 364KB. A real bummer!

Terry

Hi Dave,

Going off Thread for a moment! I have to commend the Royal Mail for the efficient way they deal with the Premium Service when one is applying for a PhotoCard Driving licence. I thought that this was really a very good idea (for a mere extra £4). It was very efficient and obviated any need for documents to be sent to DVLA, and the possibility of them going adrift in transit.

Yes, this was for my driving licence at the age of 70! Which will be in about 6 weeks time.

Terry

Terry

We get some things right

In fact, we get very many things right. It's just that we deal with huge numbers (86 million items a day) that a 5% failure is a heck of a lot of items!!

Happy (early) birthday BTW. I would post you a card, but...

Dave

Dave

Hi Dave,

>>Happy (early) birthday BTW. I would post you a card, but...<<

...It might never reach you?

As far as I know, all the stuff that Serif have posted to me have got here. Though...

...I did get PagePlus 3 through the door the other day with a penny black on it (I've scrapped the floppies, but put the stamp in the safe!)

Terry

Dang and I thought our post was bad at times.

Happy early B-day Terry.

Having followed AP's links I found this one. Not a family, that I'm aware of, but I found one called Glytus that I like pretty well. Go here and click on the link called Egypta: http://desktoppub.about.com/gi/dynam...fontennium.htm to see it.

Yes, Happy Birthday, Terry :-) !

Becky,

Thanks for pointing out "Glytus". It looks to me as though it, as well as "Installation," might be knock-offs of a typeface called Glypha, yet another of my favorites and yet another Adrian Frutiger design. It's very similar to Serifa, but slightly more condensed and therefore more efficient space-wise for body copy. It is available as a full family with weights and italics similar to those available for Serifa.

Bill Schuhle

Hi Becky et al.

Thanks for the B-day wishes. Living in hope of reaching it, having spent £10 in advance for the renewed driving-licence!

Went to the link and Egypta. Being a confirmed font addict I downloaded a hieroglyphic font! — RK Merotic Hieroglyphics — I think there are three there if anyone else wants a set of must-have hieroglyphics fonts.

Terry

Happy Birthday, Terry. :-)

Went checking out some slab fonts: http://www.myfonts.com/BrowseBy?idty...unt=126&page=1 and saw that they were a lot more diverse then I thought. Actually, I couldn't really tell why some of the ones included there were called slab serif...? But also saw that a font I use quite a bit, Seabird, is categorized as such.

Clarendon was listed as the most popular slab font sold at the MyFonts site. :-) Not one I've used. :-)

Sasha