Fifteen Facts about Fonts
Some are fun, some are ... not.
In 2027, Futura will be 100 years old. It was designed by Paul Renner.
Check out this wonderful walkthrough of the typeface by the good folks at Letterform Archive—Futura: A Typeface for Our Time
Mrs Eaves, a modern Baskerville interpretation designed by Zuzana Licko, was named after William Baskerville’s live-in housekeeper, Sarah Eaves, the woman whom he later married.
You cannot copyright a typeface. You can, however, legally protect font files.
If you correct someone who says “font” instead of “typeface,” there are better things to do with your time 99% of the time.
Comic Sans was designed for a program called Microsoft Bob in the 1990s. It was never used for said program, but it was included in Microsoft’s operating system, therefore making it available to everyone who used the OS.1
Garamond is named for Claude Garamond, a sixteenth-century Parisian engraver. There is no “original” Garamond typeface.
Futura is on the moon.
Trajan is based on the lettering found on—get this—Trajan’s Column.
Helvetica is named after “Helvetia,” the Latin name for Switzerland, the typeface’s country of origin. The typeface’s designer, Max Miedinger, originally called it Neue Haas Grotesk.
Georgia, Verdana, and Tahoma (among many others) were all designed by a man named Matthew Carter.
Using Papyrus is an irredeemable design sin, but Comic Sans is acceptable in certain circumstances.2
Eric Gill, the designer of the ubiquitous Gill Sans, was a pedophile and sexual abuser.
Though similar, Gill Sans is not the typeface used for the London Underground. That typeface is called Johnston, designed by Edward Johnston. Gill Sans is based on Johnston (the font) and Johnston (the man) was Eric Gill’s teacher.
There is a documentary film about Helvetica directed by Gary Hustwit. (It is wonderful).
Arial is a Monotype clone of Linotype’s Helvetica. The two are metrically compatible.
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1
Try this: Search “Comic Sans” on google.com.
2
What? This isn’t a fact? What are you talking about?)
Fun bonus fact: if you watch the Helvetica doc, you'll likely develop the superpower of how to tell the difference between Helvetica and Arial anywhere either of them appears -- i.e. everywhere (lesson learned from experience 😆)
Nice piece. I suspect Papyrus will come back, eventually. It has its place (though I admit right now it makes me wince hard). I remember when I started design work in the early 90s, typefaces like Lydian looked dated and terrible to my eyes. Now I love it. Even Cooper Black now feels like it's got a Victorian retro charm... whereas a lot of Neville Brody-style type (all the rage back then) looks stilted now. I used Futura a ton in the 90s, then got really bored of it, but your piece suddenly makes me think huh, that was a cool, coherent font. Maybe it's time for it to come back... it's fascinating how type works like that. The zeitgeist in letter shapes.