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A Mystery Font That Took Over New York

nytimes.com

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Re: A Mystery Font That Took Over New York

#41

Post by theoh »

marmshallow wrote: post #39
kazinator wrote: post #11

Almost all the shops in the sign photos are Asian. Because the font simulates brush strokes, it adds an Asian element, since Western writing doesn't use brush strokes. Brushes may be used in painting letters onto a sign, but only as a tool to fill an area, whereby brush marks are regarded as artifacts to be avoided. The font doesn't look quirky to someone whose native writing system's canonical form is rooted brush s…

Agreed, it’s pretty ridiculous to think otherwise.

I know HN is kind of a safe space for engineers to express their (sometimes arrogant or poorly informed) opinions about other people's fields.

But this seems over-the-top. Who are these "ridiculous" people in New York, whose grasp of the situation around why this particular font ever came to be used in NY signage is so laughably feeble and inferior to the commenter's own?

There may be no mystery worth solving, but neither is there a clearly identifiable moment when a shopkeeper selected the font for the first time. In high-profile design, in contrast, historical moments like that are often traceable—they do have an author.

Re: A Mystery Font That Took Over New York

#42

Post by quickthrower2 »

zadler wrote: post #19

How is it that in 2018 with all the decentralised technologies that have been created we don’t have a simple way to mirror nytimes articles... perhaps on some kind of “permanent web”?

Because nytimes doesn't want to be mirrored. A mirror would be a kind of arms race between nytimes and the mirror.

Re: A Mystery Font That Took Over New York

#43

Post by sailfast »

vanderZwan wrote: post #8

> “There’s an unmistakable energy in all the designs that [Roger Excoffon] does,” said Tobias Frere-Jones, a Brooklyn-based typeface designer. “They project their personality so clearly. And it’s very obviously not Helvetica or not Times or any other generic thing that might be on the awning next door.” Excoffon’s most popular typeface is probably Mistral, which was modeled after his own handwriting. Both this passag…

Thank you for this. I never made the connection for market signs. Amazing.

Re: A Mystery Font That Took Over New York

#44

Post by saagarjha »

barbegal wrote: post #30

This font is also known as Staccato 555. It was ripped off by Bitstream and included in the Bitstream TrueType Font Pack for Microsoft Windows 3.1 For some information about these fonts see https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.fonts/y3BOdTKSg...

> This font is also known as Staccato 555.

It’s mentioned in the article that it was packaged as part of CorelDraw under this name.

Re: A Mystery Font That Took Over New York

#45

Post by [deleted] »

theoh wrote: post #41
marmshallow wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, it’s pretty ridiculous to think otherwise.

I know HN is kind of a safe space for engineers to express their (sometimes arrogant or poorly informed) opinions about other people's fields. But this seems over-the-top. Who are these "ridiculous" people in New York, whose grasp of the situation around why this particular font ever came to be used in NY signage is so laughably feeble and inferior to the commenter's own? There may be no mystery worth solving, but ne…

[deleted]

Re: A Mystery Font That Took Over New York

#46

Post by vanderZwan »

egypturnash wrote: post #40
vanderZwan wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gorgeous, the connection is pretty clear, yeah! Makes me wonder if the handwritten signs from the last century couldn't be considered one of those kind of undocumented, almost subconscious arts "traditions". Kind of like how all kebab places seem to follow the exact same horrible aesthetic without it being a coordinated effort.

Oh there is plenty of documentation on these sorts of things, in the form of tradecraft manuals. The first example that comes to mind is the Speedball lettering manuals ( https://www.printmag.com/design-inspiration/the-speedball-te... ) but there’s other ones out there that have gone through many printings.

Very cool, thanks for the link and the terms I should search for online if I want to learn more!

Re: A Mystery Font That Took Over New York

#48

Post by oliv__ »

dylan604 wrote: post #13
vanderZwan wrote: post #8

> “There’s an unmistakable energy in all the designs that [Roger Excoffon] does,” said Tobias Frere-Jones, a Brooklyn-based typeface designer. “They project their personality so clearly. And it’s very obviously not Helvetica or not Times or any other generic thing that might be on the awning next door.” Excoffon’s most popular typeface is probably Mistral, which was modeled after his own handwriting. Both this passag…

[1] link opens up to a Dutch "Accept My Cookies" modal that covers 75% of the screen. That tab got closed without me even knowing what the page looked like. Just shot up into the top 5 of my personal most offensive while being most useless list. Sad, because I was actually curious to see what the page said.

You spent more time writing this comment than you would've clicking the "Accept" button.

Re: A Mystery Font That Took Over New York

#49

Post by matt4077 »

theoh wrote: post #41
marmshallow wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, it’s pretty ridiculous to think otherwise.

I know HN is kind of a safe space for engineers to express their (sometimes arrogant or poorly informed) opinions about other people's fields. But this seems over-the-top. Who are these "ridiculous" people in New York, whose grasp of the situation around why this particular font ever came to be used in NY signage is so laughably feeble and inferior to the commenter's own? There may be no mystery worth solving, but ne…

I think these comments' arguing over the "mystery" isn't necessarily the problem...

It's that people can apparently read a lavish, deeply-researched article, yet are incapable of discussing it in terms other than its headline.

So they are somewhat right, obviously. And the article comes to the same conclusion[0].

But those that consider this narrow answer as in any way central to the article suffer from some fundamental misunderstanding of the genre. I can just imagine them complaining about Infinite Jest: First, because they are unlikely to consider it very jesty. And secondly because it isn't actually infinite.

[0]: while even finding a candidate for "a clearly identifiable moment when a shopkeeper selected the font for the first time"–25 years after the fact.

Re: A Mystery Font That Took Over New York

#50

Post by matt4077 »

zadler wrote: post #19

How is it that in 2018 with all the decentralised technologies that have been created we don’t have a simple way to mirror nytimes articles... perhaps on some kind of “permanent web”?

Because people reading an elaborate, richly designed, deeply researched, and entertainingly written article about a font will really be grasping for straws trying to defend their unwillingness to pay?

It's original reporting, so the usual copout of calling it worthless as soon as it appears in more than one publication doesn't work.

It's a metered paywall, so their insistence that they only read a single article from the NYT, like, once per year is provably wrong.

The topic is rather whimsical, and unlikely to be of much consequence for anybody's life. That makes any sort of appeal to a "right to be informed" or sumsuch rather flimsy.

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