Bitstream names decoded
Michael Macrone
designs given those trademark-busting names on the Bitstream 500 Fonts
CD-ROM. With the aid of the FontShop's "FontBook," I've managed to peg
most of them, and thought others might be interested. I list the Bitstream
name, the name of the original design, and, where available, the designer
and date of original issue.
If anyone can spot the ones I've missed, by all means chime in.
Aldine 401 Bembo (F. Griffo/A. Tagliente, 1929)
Aldine 721 ? (Bembo 2?)
Brush 445 Palette (M. Wilke, 1953)
Brush 738 ?
Calligraphic 421 Codex (G. Trump, 1954)
Calligraphic 810 Diotima (G. Zapf von Hesse, 1952–53)
Decorated 035 Profil (E. & M. Lenz, 1946)
Dutch 801 Times New Roman (S. Morrison/V. Lardent, 1931–35)
Egyptian 505 VGC Egyptian 505 (A. Gürtler, 1966)
English 157 Englische Schreibschrift
Exotic 350 Peignot (A. M. Cassandre, 1937)
Flareserif 821 Albertus (B. Wolpe, 1938)
Formal Script 421 Ondine (A. Frutiger, 1954)
Freeform 710 Eckmann (O. Eckmann, 1900)
Freeform 721 Auriol (G. Auriol, 1901–1904)
Freehand 471 Cascade Script (Matthew Carter, 1966)
Freehand 521 Mandate
Freehand 575 Jefferson
Freehand 591 Bingham Script
Geometric 231 Stempel Kabel (R. Koch, 1927)
Geometric 415 Metro (W. A. Dwiggins, 1930–32)
Geometric 706 Neuzeit Grotesk (W. Pischner, 1928)
Geometric Slabserif 703 Memphis (R. Wolf/C. H. Griffith, 1929–38)
Geometric Slabserif 712 Rockwell (F. H. Pierpont, 1934)
Gothic 725 ? (ATF Franklin Gothic?)
Gothic 821 ?
Humanist 521 Gill Sans (E. Gill, 1928–32)
Humanist 777 ? (Syntax?)
Humanist 970 Ad Sans (W. Tracy, 1959)
Incised 901 Antique Olive (R. Excoffon, 1962–68)
Industrial 736 Torino (A. Butti, 1908)
Informal 011 Neuland (R. Koch, 1923)
Kuenstler 480 Trump Medieval (G. Trump, 1958)
Lapidary 333 Perpetua (E. Gill, 1928–35)
Modern 735 Bodoni Campanile (1936)
Monospace 821 Helvetica Monospace
News 701 Ionic no. 5
Revival 565 Berling (K. E. Forsberg, 1951–58)
Ribbon 131 Coronet (R. H. Middleton, 1937)
Square 721 Eurostile (A. Novarese, 1962)
Square Slabserif 711 Berthold City (G. Trump, 1930)
Staccato 222 Mistral (R. Excoffon, 1953)
Staccato 555 Choc (R. Excoffon, 1954)
Swiss 721 Helvetica
Swiss 911 Helvetica Compressed (H. J. Hunziker/M. Carter, 1974)
Swiss 921 Helvetica Inserat (?)
Swiss 924 Hanseatic
Transitional 521 Electra (Dwiggins, 1935–44)
Transitional 551 Fairfield (A. Kaczun, 1991)
Venetian 301 Centaur (B. Rogers/F. Warde, 1928-30)
Zapf Calligraphic 801 Palatino (H. Zapf, 1948)
Zapf Elliptical 711 Melior (H. Zapf, 1952)
Zapf Humanist 601 Optima (H. Zapf, 1958-68)
Zurich Univers (A. Frutiger, 1957)
Michael Macrone
mac...@well.sf.ca.us
The Mighty Fez
Michael Macrone <mac...@netcom.com> wrote:
>For my own type-nerdy amusement, I've been trying to identify the original
>designs given those trademark-busting names on the Bitstream 500 Fonts
>CD-ROM. With the aid of the FontShop's "FontBook," I've managed to peg
>most of them, and thought others might be interested. I list the Bitstream
>name, the name of the original design, and, where available, the designer
>and date of original issue.
>
>If anyone can spot the ones I've missed, by all means chime in.
Dutch 801 more closely resembles original Times than it does Times New Roman.
The only visible way I know of telling these two apart is the bold version
of the capital J. In Times it extends below the baseline; in Times New it
does not.
Are there any other obvious differences between Times and Times New? I think
Mr. Bigelow (is it Dr.?) might know about this one...
Fez
--
John Butler, Media Assassin * "DISCLAIMER:
Georgia Tech College Republicans * My employer has yet to purchase
gt1...@prism.gatech.edu * a site license for my opinions.
john....@gtri.gatech.edu * f...@rflab1.gatech.edu
Wayne Torborg
MM>For my own type-nerdy amusement, I've been trying to identify the ori
MM>designs given those trademark-busting names on the Bitstream 500 Font
MM>CD-ROM. With the aid of the FontShop's "FontBook," I've managed to pe
MM>most of them, and thought others might be interested. I list the Bits
MM>name, the name of the original design, and, where available, the desi
MM>and date of original issue.
MM>
MM>If anyone can spot the ones I've missed, by all means chime in.
MM>deletia......
MM>Humanist 777 ? (Syntax?)
MM>Monospace 821 Helvetica Monospace
Michael:
Humanist 777 is Bitstream's version of Frutigar (designed by Adrian
Frutigar, the producer of Univers), and I believe that Monospaced 821 is
a clone of Letter Gothic.
Quite a deal on the CD, isn't it?!
Wayne Torborg (wayne....@granite.mn.org) 05/02/94 22:51
---
þ CmpQwk #UNREGþ UNREGISTERED EVALUATION COPY
Harvey Fishman
> Dutch 801 more closely resembles original Times than it does Times New Roman.
> The only visible way I know of telling these two apart is the bold version
> of the capital J. In Times it extends below the baseline; in Times New it
> does not.
>
> Are there any other obvious differences between Times and Times New? I think
> Mr. Bigelow (is it Dr.?) might know about this one...
In spite of the illogicality of it, is not Times New Roman the ORIGINAL
(being derived from Plantin) with Times being a knockoff to avoid the
copyrights on typeface names?
Harvey
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Harvey Fishman | Hating someone is sort of like beating your head
fis...@panix.com | against the wall.
718-258-7276 | It feels so good when you stop.
Stijn Raaijmakers
>In article <macroneC...@netcom.com>,
>Michael Macrone <mac...@netcom.com> wrote:
>>For my own type-nerdy amusement, I've been trying to identify the original
>>designs given those trademark-busting names on the Bitstream 500 Fonts
>>CD-ROM. With the aid of the FontShop's "FontBook," I've managed to peg
>>most of them, and thought others might be interested. I list the Bitstream
>>name, the name of the original design, and, where available, the designer
>>and date of original issue.
>>
>>If anyone can spot the ones I've missed, by all means chime in.
>Dutch 801 more closely resembles original Times than it does Times New Roman.
>The only visible way I know of telling these two apart is the bold version
>of the capital J. In Times it extends below the baseline; in Times New it
>does not.
>Are there any other obvious differences between Times and Times New? I think
>Mr. Bigelow (is it Dr.?) might know about this one...
Times New Roman has a larger x-height and is darker. I believe it has
less contrast, too. So Times looks smaller, lighter and sharper.
By the way, have you noticed that in books often Times extra bold is
used instead of Times bold? Quite ugly, as Times bold italic is used
for bold italic and not Times extra bold italic. In a dutch
newspaper, `de Volkskrant,' they use Concorde for the main text. It
looks like Times when you first see it, but it has a very suble
calligraphic touch too it, which makes it nice to look at, instead of
being dull and hard, like Times.
Stijn.
Michael Macrone
> Humanist 777 is Bitstream's version of Frutigar (designed by Adrian
> Frutigar, the producer of Univers), and I believe that Monospaced 821 is
> a clone of Letter Gothic.
> Quite a deal on the CD, isn't it?!
Amazing deal -- now all I need is a CD-ROM drive and FontHopper!
Thanks Wayne for identifying Humanist 777 as Frutiger; it all makes sense
now. As for Monospace 821, it is indeed very close to Letter Gothic but
identified by the FontBook as Helvetica Monospace. I'd need to print out
a character set to confirm this -- a giveaway would be the lowercase
italic "f."
I've also identified another of the question marks on my list: Aldine 721
is actually Plantin.
Michael Macrone
mac...@well.sf.ca.us
Charles A. Bigelow
>In <2q3mf0$s...@news.gatech.edu> f...@rflab1.gatech.edu (The Mighty Fez) says
>
>> Dutch 801 more closely resembles original Times than it does Times New Roman.
>> The only visible way I know of telling these two apart is the bold version
>> of the capital J. In Times it extends below the baseline; in Times New it
>> does not.
>>
>> Are there any other obvious differences between Times and Times New? I think
>> Mr. Bigelow (is it Dr.?) might know about this one...
>
>In spite of the illogicality of it, is not Times New Roman the ORIGINAL
>(being derived from Plantin) with Times being a knockoff to avoid the
>copyrights on typeface names?
>
>Harvey
Yes, Harvey Fishman is about Times New Roman being the original design. Times
Roman is the name used by Lintoype when they registered the trademark for the
design in the U.S. Times New Roman was developed by *The Times* for its own
use, under the design direction of Stanley Morison. Originally cut by the
Monotype Corp. in England, the design was also licensed to Linotype, because
The Times used linotype equipment for much of its actual production. The story
of "The Times New Roman" can be found in Stanley Morison's *A Tally of Types*,
published by Cambridge University Press, with additional, though not quite the
same, versions in Nicolas Barker's biography of Stanley Morison, and in James
Moran's bio of SM. (There should be an apostrophe in that name, I suppose, non
one uses it.)
During WWII, the American Linotype company, in a generous spirit of Allied
cameraderie, applied for registeration of the trademark name "Times Roman" as
its own, not Monotype's or The Times', and received the registration in 1945.
In the 1980's, all this was revisited when some entrepreneurs, desirous of
gaining the rights to use the name, applied to Rupert Murdock, who owned The
Times, and separately a legal action was also initiated to clarify the right of
Monotype to use the name in the U.S., despite Linotype's registration.
The outcome of all of this is that Linotype and its licensees like Adobe and
Apple continue to use the name "Times Roman", while Monotype and its licensees
like Microsoft use the name "Times New Roman".
During the decades of transatlantic "sharing" of the Times designs, and the
transfer of the faces from metal to photo to digital, various differences
developed between the versions marketed by Linotype and Monotype. Especially
these became evident when Adobe released the PostScript version, for various
reasons having to do with how Adobe produced the original PostScript
implenentations of Times. The width metrics were different, as well as various
proportions and details.
In the late 1980's, Monotype redrew its Times New Roman to make it fit exactly
the proportions and metrics of the Adobe-Linotype version of Times Roman.
Monotype claimed that its new version was better than the Adobe-Linotype
version, because of smoother curves, better detailing, and generally greater
sensitivity to the original designs done for Monotype by Victor Lardent, who
worked under the direction of Stanley Morison. During the same period, Adobe
upgraded its version of Times, using digital masters from Linotype, which of
course claimed that it had a superior version, so there was a kind of
competition to see who had the most refined, sensitive, original, genuine,
bona-fide, artistically and typographically correct version. Many, perhaps
most, users didn't notice and didn't care about these subtle distinctions, many
of which were invisible at 10 pt at 300 dpi, which is an em of 42 pixels, a
stem of three pixels, a serif of 1 pixel, and so on.
When Microsoft produced its version of Times New Roman, licensed from Monotype,
in TrueType format, and when Apple produced its version of Times Roman,
licensed from Linotype, in TrueType format, the subtle competition took on a
new aspect, because both Microsoft and Apple expended a great deal of time and
effort to make the TrueType versions as good as, or better than, the PostScript
version. During the same period, Adobe released ATM along with upgraded
versions of its core set of fonts, for improved rasterization on screen. Also,
firms like Imagen, now part of QMS, and Sun developed rival font scaling
technologies, and labored to make sure that their renderings of Times, licensed
from Linotype in both cases, were equal to those of their competitors. Hence,
the perceived quality of the Times design became a litmus for the quality of
several font formats. Never before, and probably never again, would the precise
placement of pixels in the serifs or 's' curves etc. of Times Roman occupy
the attention of so many engineers and computer scientists. It was perhaps the
supreme era of the Digital Fontologist.
As for the actual visual differences in the designs, well, like any good
academic author, I leave the detection and analysis of those "as an exercise
for the reader".
-- Chuck Bigelow
Harvey Fishman
the United States. As a supplement to that, another issuer of TNR other
than either Adobe/Linotype or Microsoft/Monotype was/is IBM. It has
always been included in Type 1 format with the Adobe Type Manager that is
part of OS/2. I have found the copyright notices embedded in the .afm
files to be extremely interesting. The information from OS/2 Version 1.3
is:
Comment Copyright (c) 1990 IBM Corporation, All Rights Reserved.
Comment Creation Date: Fri Jul 27 10:00:00 1990
Notice Copyright (c) IBM Corporation 1990, All Rights Reserved.
Copyright (c) The Monotype Corporation plc, 1990. All Rights Reserved.
Times New Roman is a Trademark of the Monotype Corporation plc.
Note the date of the Monotype copyright. The similar information from
OS/2 2.0 is:
Comment Creation Date: Fri Feb 28 11:46:45 1992
Comment Copyright (c) IBM Corporation 1990,1992. All Rights Reserved.
Comment Licensed Materials - Program Property of IBM, All Rights Reserved.
Comment Copyright (c) The Monotype Corporation plc 1989, All Rights Reserved.
Comment Times New Roman is a Trademark of the Monotype Corporation plc.
I found it intriguing that the later version had an earlier copyright date
from Monotype. With OS/2 2.1, IBM/Adobe changed to a binary metrics file
(.ofm), and the .afm file is no longer included in the distribution. The
date in the .pfb file from OS/2 2.1 also has the 1989 copyright date for
Monotype plc.
Bruce Albrecht
>Wayne Torborg (wayne....@granite.mn.org) wrote:
>
>> Humanist 777 is Bitstream's version of Frutigar (designed by Adrian
>> Frutigar, the producer of Univers), and I believe that Monospaced 821 is
>> a clone of Letter Gothic.
>
>now. As for Monospace 821, it is indeed very close to Letter Gothic but
>identified by the FontBook as Helvetica Monospace. I'd need to print out
>a character set to confirm this -- a giveaway would be the lowercase
>italic "f."
>
>I've also identified another of the question marks on my list: Aldine 721
>is actually Plantin.
Perhaps all the detective work is fun, but I think it would be easier to
call 1-800-237-3335 (assuming you're in the US), and ask for a copy of the
font catalog/poster. The poster identifies Monospace 821 as Bitstream's
version of Helvetica Monospace, by the way.
--
Bruce Albrecht (br...@zuhause.mn.org)
Youth is wasted on the young.