Thanks for your articles, Mr. Felici. They are very interesting. I am looking forward to reading your upcoming articles on nuts-and-bolts typesetting issues.
Let me raise a related topic: typesetting for preparation of business documents in Word and other word processing programs.
A bit of my background because it will help you understand why I raise the issue. I am a retired lawyer who has long had an interest in typography. Now that I am retired, I am finally able to take a community college course in typography/InDesign. I am enjoying the course and I am learning typographical principles to which I was never exposed before. (I had never heard of old style figures and true small caps, for example, before beginning the course.)
In around 1980, I became the first lawyer in my 600 lawyer law firm to start using Times New instead of Courier for letters and pleadings. That was in the days of WordPerfect 5.1 when there were no matching screen fonts and each line of Times New text would run off the edge of the screen. It was thus considerably more difficult than using Courier but the printed result was worth it.
Now, some 30 years later, most law firms use Times New for correspondence, contracts, and pleadings. Other than that, though, business typography is still stuck in the days of typewriters. It is rare to see em-hyphens. Most commonly people use double hyphens. Similarly, paragraphs almost always begin with a half inch indentation, have blank lines between paragraphs, and leave two spaces at the end of every sentence, as was the custom developed when office documents were created using typewriters with fixed-width characters. Leading is almost always left to Word's default settings except when doing pleadings in states with numbered paper, where the text is aligned to the line numbers set to 1/3" leading to match a typewriter's double spacing intervals.
Now with the advent of OpenType faces and their inclusion with Windows and Office for the first time, old style numbers, true small caps, etc., are starting to become widely available to business office typists. Also, Word 2010 to be released early next year will include new features to access alternate glyph forms, such as OSF, true small caps, ligatures, etc., and to make tracking and manual kerning much easier.
Unfortunately, I see almost nothing in the way of articles regarding typography in business-type documents. Guidelines for type-setting in books may not be appropriate for letters and contracts since the latter generally have more words per line than do books, and other documents commonly prepared by those with a background in design and traditional typography.
I would love to see more attention given to applying typographical principles to business documents to facilitate ease of reading and, secondarily, overall attractiveness of appearance. Until now, there seems to have been a gulf between graphical designers/typographers, on the one hand, and those preparing business documents, on the other hand, with little attention given to improving typography in business documents, now that easy-to-use typographical tools are becoming more available in word processing programs.
It is good to know of a great project to expect 'next time' in Creative Pro. Please do not infer there is a shortage of creative and helpful work in your site. Not at all. But type is in many ways the foundation of all we do out here in Graphics Land. So we can never know everything.
Those of us who care about customer desires in design have found themselves thumbing through books of type faces or flipping through screens full of even more. Usually I can find that obscure face a client seeks but every now and then we settle for "close."
It would be a wonderful addition to Adobe's Sweet CS4.5 if a whiff of the "Quick brown fox" could be sniffed by Intel and it's name spit out with an offer to purchase it now that it is found.
Not as much fun as that hundredth or so search through the font drawers but we could do that just for the heck of it.
Submitted by HawaiiBill on Tue, 10/06/2009 - 20:37.
Sorry Stu, but the typefaces are indeed called “Scotch.” If it’s any comfort to you, we whose families hail from Italy aren’t usually called Italics, either.
And HawaiiBill, check out http://new.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/, a service from Bitstream that will attempt to match type samples you send them to fonts you can buy, using a database of typeface designs. It’s new, and I haven’t used it myself, but it’s worth a try.
As for typography for business documents, that’s a big topic and an excellent idea. Microsoft Word is becoming much more typographically adept, but most people working in offices don’t have the time to learn all of the new features that crowd their program menus, much less take the time to study typography. A large number of the keyboard ticklers out there learned their skills on a typewriter, and old habits die hard. I will indeed address the problem in a column soon.
And by the way, the full name for the face you mention is Times New Roman, which was a new roman face designed for The Times of London by Stanley Morison back in 1932 and released by Monotype. (The Times doesn’t use it any more.) A Linotype version of the design is sold under the name Times Roman. Not many faces have “Roman” as part of their formal name, but this is one of them, giving us the odd-sounding complementary font, Times New Roman Italic.
First off, my deepest appreciation for Mr. Felici's efforts on this subject. A prof in art school instilled in me a love for typography and a deep interest in the history of type. Articles like these are right up my galley, so to speak... (pun intended).
Secondly, I have used What the Font when looking for a particular font and have found their system worked well for me. I would suggest giving it a try, particularly if you're like me and remember one font with another ones name...
geozinger
Submitted by geozinger on Sun, 10/11/2009 - 17:39.
Typeface Name Game
I enjoyed this informative article that helps to simplify the typeface name game.
Typesetting in Word Processing Programs
Thanks for your articles, Mr. Felici. They are very interesting. I am looking forward to reading your upcoming articles on nuts-and-bolts typesetting issues.
Let me raise a related topic: typesetting for preparation of business documents in Word and other word processing programs.
A bit of my background because it will help you understand why I raise the issue. I am a retired lawyer who has long had an interest in typography. Now that I am retired, I am finally able to take a community college course in typography/InDesign. I am enjoying the course and I am learning typographical principles to which I was never exposed before. (I had never heard of old style figures and true small caps, for example, before beginning the course.)
In around 1980, I became the first lawyer in my 600 lawyer law firm to start using Times New instead of Courier for letters and pleadings. That was in the days of WordPerfect 5.1 when there were no matching screen fonts and each line of Times New text would run off the edge of the screen. It was thus considerably more difficult than using Courier but the printed result was worth it.
Now, some 30 years later, most law firms use Times New for correspondence, contracts, and pleadings. Other than that, though, business typography is still stuck in the days of typewriters. It is rare to see em-hyphens. Most commonly people use double hyphens. Similarly, paragraphs almost always begin with a half inch indentation, have blank lines between paragraphs, and leave two spaces at the end of every sentence, as was the custom developed when office documents were created using typewriters with fixed-width characters. Leading is almost always left to Word's default settings except when doing pleadings in states with numbered paper, where the text is aligned to the line numbers set to 1/3" leading to match a typewriter's double spacing intervals.
Now with the advent of OpenType faces and their inclusion with Windows and Office for the first time, old style numbers, true small caps, etc., are starting to become widely available to business office typists. Also, Word 2010 to be released early next year will include new features to access alternate glyph forms, such as OSF, true small caps, ligatures, etc., and to make tracking and manual kerning much easier.
Unfortunately, I see almost nothing in the way of articles regarding typography in business-type documents. Guidelines for type-setting in books may not be appropriate for letters and contracts since the latter generally have more words per line than do books, and other documents commonly prepared by those with a background in design and traditional typography.
I would love to see more attention given to applying typographical principles to business documents to facilitate ease of reading and, secondarily, overall attractiveness of appearance. Until now, there seems to have been a gulf between graphical designers/typographers, on the one hand, and those preparing business documents, on the other hand, with little attention given to improving typography in business documents, now that easy-to-use typographical tools are becoming more available in word processing programs.
The more on typography we get the better we are
It is good to know of a great project to expect 'next time' in Creative Pro. Please do not infer there is a shortage of creative and helpful work in your site. Not at all. But type is in many ways the foundation of all we do out here in Graphics Land. So we can never know everything.
Software for discerning font names needed
Those of us who care about customer desires in design have found themselves thumbing through books of type faces or flipping through screens full of even more. Usually I can find that obscure face a client seeks but every now and then we settle for "close."
It would be a wonderful addition to Adobe's Sweet CS4.5 if a whiff of the "Quick brown fox" could be sniffed by Intel and it's name spit out with an offer to purchase it now that it is found.
Not as much fun as that hundredth or so search through the font drawers but we could do that just for the heck of it.
Transitional history
Thanks for this very helpful article. It is a mindfield but a very interesting one.
As someone just starting out with their interest in typography, and a Scot, can I check that you mean Scotch faces and precedents rather than Scots?
It may be a traditional term, which is why i'd like to query it, but can also be a common mistake which gets us Scots crying in our Scotch!
Thanks again
Stu
Jim Felici replies to your comments
Sorry Stu, but the typefaces are indeed called “Scotch.” If it’s any comfort to you, we whose families hail from Italy aren’t usually called Italics, either.
And HawaiiBill, check out http://new.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/, a service from Bitstream that will attempt to match type samples you send them to fonts you can buy, using a database of typeface designs. It’s new, and I haven’t used it myself, but it’s worth a try.
As for typography for business documents, that’s a big topic and an excellent idea. Microsoft Word is becoming much more typographically adept, but most people working in offices don’t have the time to learn all of the new features that crowd their program menus, much less take the time to study typography. A large number of the keyboard ticklers out there learned their skills on a typewriter, and old habits die hard. I will indeed address the problem in a column soon.
And by the way, the full name for the face you mention is Times New Roman, which was a new roman face designed for The Times of London by Stanley Morison back in 1932 and released by Monotype. (The Times doesn’t use it any more.) A Linotype version of the design is sold under the name Times Roman. Not many faces have “Roman” as part of their formal name, but this is one of them, giving us the odd-sounding complementary font, Times New Roman Italic.
What the Font works!
First off, my deepest appreciation for Mr. Felici's efforts on this subject. A prof in art school instilled in me a love for typography and a deep interest in the history of type. Articles like these are right up my galley, so to speak... (pun intended).
Secondly, I have used What the Font when looking for a particular font and have found their system worked well for me. I would suggest giving it a try, particularly if you're like me and remember one font with another ones name...
geozinger