Font (pronounced font)
(1) In Christianity, a receptacle, usually of stone, as
in a baptistery or church, containing the holy water used in baptism (now usually as "fount").
(2) A receptacle for holy water; a stoup (now usually as "fount") .
(3) A productive source (often in the form “a fount of wisdom”).
(4) The reservoir for the oil in a lamp, ink for a pen
etc (now usually as "fount").
(5) Figuratively, a spring or fountain; a wellspring (archaic
but still appears in poetic & literary use as both "font" & "fount").
(6) In the slang of television production, to overlay text
onto the picture.
(7) In typography, a set of glyphs of unified design,
belonging to one typeface, style & weight and usually representing the
letters of an alphabet, supplementary characters, punctuation marks and the ten
standard numerals.
(8) In phototypesetting, a set of patterns forming glyphs
of any size, or the film they are stored on.
(9) In digital typesetting, a set of glyphs in a single
style, representing one or more alphabets or writing systems, or the computer
code representing it.
(10) In computing, a file containing the code used to
draw and compose the glyphs of one or more typographic fonts on a display or
printer.
Pre 1000: From the Middle English font, from the Old
English font & fant, from the Latin font-, the stem of the Church Latin fons baptismalis (baptismal font,
spring, fountain) from the Classical Latin fōns
(genitive fontis) (fountain). The use in printing to describe typefaces
dates from the 1570s and was from the Old & Middle French fonte (a founding, casting), the feminine
past participle of the verb fondre (to
melt), from the unattested Vulgar Latin funditus
(a pouring, molding, casting), a verbal noun from the Latin fundere (past participle fusus) (to pour a melted substance) from
a nasalized form of the primitive Indo-European root gheu- (to pour). The meaning
was acquired because all the characters in a set were cast at the same time. Most people use the words font and typeface as
synonyms but industry professionals maintain a distinction: the typeface is the
set of characters of the same design; the font is the physical means of
producing them; that difference was maintained even as printing moved from
physical wood & metal to electronics.
The modern practice is for the spelling “font” to apply to use in
printing while “fount” is use for receptacles containing liquids. That must seem strange to those learning the
language but it’s how things evolved. Font
is a noun & verb, fonted is a verb & adjective, fonting is a verb and fontal
is an adjective; the noun plural is fonts.
The politics of fonts
Great moments in fonts: Always select your font with care.
Dr Stephen Banham (b 1968) is a senior lecturer in typography at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia who has published widely on the subject. He recently discussed the politics of fonts and offered a number of examples of how fonts have played some significant role in recent history. He noted the way in which some developments in typefaces have been technologically deterministic, something related not only to the changes in the mechanical devices used in printing (such as the shift from wooden to metal type) but also the speed at which people travelled while reading. When the development of railways meant people began regularly to travel at speeds beyond that which teams of horses could attain, it meant there was signage which had to be legible to those passing on the train and this was not always simply a matter of scaling-up the existing styles; sometimes new designs were needed with different aspect ratios.
Fonts in transition: Nazi Party poster advertising
a “Freedoms Rally” (the irony not apparent at the time), Schneidemuhl, Germany,
(now Pila, Poland) in 1931 (left), Edict issued by Martin Bormann (1900–1945) banning
the future use of Judenlettern (Jewish fonts) like Fraktur (the irony of the
letterhead being in the now banned typeface presumably didn’t disturb the
author) (centre) and (in modern Roman script), an announcement in occupied that
100 Polish hostages had been executed as a reprisal for death of two Germans in
Warsaw, 1944 (right).
Sometimes too, the message was the typeface itself; it
imparted values that were separate from the specific meaning in the text. The Nazi regime (1933-1945) in Germany was
always conscious of spectacle and although in matters of such as architecture customs
there was a surprising tolerance of regional difference, in some things it
demanded uniformity and one of those was the appearance of official documents. Early in his rule their rule, Adolf Hitler
(1889-1945; Führer (leader), German head of government 1933-1945 & head of
state 1934-1945) decreed that “German Black Letter” should be used for all
official purposes (and it was used in the cover art of most early editions of Mein Kampf); Hitler, who to the end
thought himself an “artist”, liked the heavy, angular form for its encapsulation
of the Germanic. Fraktur is probably the
best known of these although it’s but one of a number of variations of the typeface
and such was the extend of the state support for the font that the party was
critical of newspapers, publishers & magazines which used more modern (and
easier to read) forms (and they were used by the German military and civil
service when legibility was important), a frequent criticism being the “Roman
characters” somehow represented a “Jewish influence”. In one of the ironies of history however, when
it became apparent that when used in letters and notices distributed to enforce
rule in the occupied territories the use of the font was counter-productive
because it was so hard to read, the Nazis suddenly declared that Fraktur had
become contaminated wand was thus proscribed as Judenlettern (Jewish letters), official
documents thereafter rendered in modern Roman type. Martin Bormann's edict was issued thus:
I
announce the following, by order of the Führer:
It is
false to regard the so-called Gothic typeface as a German typeface. In reality,
the so-called Gothic typeface consists of Schwabacher-Jewish letters. Just as
they later came to own the newspapers, the Jews living in Germany also owned
the printing presses… and thus came about the common use in Germany of
Schwabacher-Jewish letters.
Today
the Führer… decided that Antiqua type is to be regarded as the standard
typeface. Over time, all printed matter should be converted to this standard
typeface. This will occur as soon as possible in regard to school textbooks,
only the standard script will be taught in village and primary schools. The use
of Schwabacher-Jewish letters by authorities will in future cease. Certificates
of appointment for officials, street signs and the like will in future only be produced
in standard lettering…
In the post war years, fonts (the word had come by them
to be used generically of typefaces except by printers) reflected the mood of
the times and in the unexpectedly buoyant years of the 1950s there emerged in
West Germany (the FRG) “Optima”, (1958) intended to convey the optimism
engendered by the Wirtschaftswunder (the economic miracle) while in France, “Univers”
(1957), the product of a Swiss designer, was in a similar vein and intended to
be suitable for all purposes in all languages.
Doubtlessly though, no font compares with the Swiss "Helvetica" (1957) which,
by virtue of its elegance, simplicity & adaptability, quickly enjoyed a
popularity which endures to this day and it remains the only font which has been the subject of a full-length feature film. It
spawned a number of imitators, especially after it was included in Adobe’s PostScript
set, the best known of which is probably the ubiquitous Arial (1982). The optimism of the 1950s is long gone
although Optima remains available and names still reflect something of the concerns
of their era: “Exocet” (1981), “Stealth” (1983) and “Patriot” (1986) all part
of the late Cold War Zeitgeist. Fonts
can also reflect environment concerns and there are now some which no longer
use solid forms, instead being made of lines, thereby reducing the consumption
of ink or toner by up to 12%. The trick
isn’t detectable by the naked eye and is actually not new, “outline” typefaces
long available although in those the technique was designed to be apparent and
there were limitations in their application; below a certain size they tended
to fragment.
More great moments in fonts.
During the Covid-19 pandemic when we were all spend much
time in a form of house arrest, the font download sites all noted a spike in
demand for script-like fonts, especially those which most resembled handwriting
(and it is possible to have one’s own handwriting rendered as a font), the
demand presumed to be induced by a longing for a way to express feelings in a more
“human” way than the default serif and san serif sets which ship with email and
messenger services. That over arching
binary (serif & san serif) has also attracted criticism because humanity’s
most obvious binary (male & female) in now under siege as a form of oppression
so binaries in general seem no longer fashionable. With fonts, the most obvious micro-aggression
is the way fonts are often categorized as “masculine” (Arial; Verdana etc) and “feminine”
(Brush Script; Comic Sans (maybe in fuchsia) etc) and though the relevant
characteristics can’t exactly be defined (except for the fuchsia), the
differences probably can be recognized although that of course is a product of
the prejudices and suppositions of the observer. Presumably, if offered a third category
(gender-neutral), a sample group would put some fonts in there but even that
would seem based on the prejudices and suppositions constructed by the original
binary. The mechanics (as opposed to the
content) of typology is one of the less expected theatres of the culture wars.
The simultaneously derided yet still popular font Comic Sans
(1984) has been more controversial than most.
The design was intended to recall the sort of writing which appeared in
the speech bubbles of cartoons and it first came to wide public attention in
1995 when it was used in Microsoft Bob, the software which was an attempt to
use a cartoon-like interface to make navigating Windows 95 easier for
neophytes. Even less popular than Windows
Me, Windows Vista or DOS 4.0, Bob was allowed quietly to die but Comic Sans
survived and found a niche, much to the disgust of some in major corporations
who banned its use, demanding the staff use only “dignified” or “serious” (presumably
masculine) fonts rather than something from a comic book. Unfortunately, this news
appeared not to reach whoever it was in the Netherlands who in 2012 approved
the use of Comic Sans on the World War II memorial Verzoening (Reconciliation) erected in the town of Geffen. That attracted much criticism but not as much
as the decision to have the names of Jewish, Allied and German military deaths all
to be etched (in Comic Sans) on the same stone.
After it was pointed out that reconciliation with the SS was not a
national sentiment, the offending names were removed although for the rest,
Comic Sans remained, albeit modified by the stonemasons so the text was
rendered thicker, the local authorities justifying the retention on the grounds
the shape of the text was in accord with the stone (it’s difficult to see the connection)
and easily legible at a distance (certainly true). It may be the only monument in the world,
dedicated to the dead, which uses Comic Sans.
Crooked
Hillary Clinton updating her Burn Book which, during the primary campaign for
the Democrat Party nomination for the 2016 presidential election, probably would
have been referred to internally as her "Bern Book" because it would have been so filled with tactics
designed to sabotage the campaign of Bernie Sanders (b 1941; senior US senator
(Independent, Vermont) since 2007) (digitally altered image). In Mean Girls (2004), the Burn Book's cover
used the "ransom note" technique which involved physically cutting
letters from newspapers & magazines and pasting them onto a page, a trick
of the pre-DNA analysis age which left no identifiable handwriting. There are a number of "ransom"
fonts which emulate the appearance in software.
Politicians
do maintain burn books although few are much discussed. Richard Nixon's (1913-1994; US president
1969-1974) "enemies list" became famous in 1973 when it emerged during
congressional hearings enquiring into the Watergate break-in and that such a list
existed surprised few although some did expect it to contain more names than
the twenty included; it was common knowledge Nixon had many more enemies than
that. That view was vindicated when
later lists were revealed (some containing hundreds of names) though had the
net been cast a little wider, it could well have run to thousands. At
least one Eurocrat has also admitted to keeping a burn book although
Jean-Claude Juncker (b 1954; president of the European Commission 2014-2019)
calls his "little black book" Le
Petit Maurice (little Maurice), the name apparently a reference to a
contemporary from his school days who grew taller than the youthful Jean-Claude
and seldom neglected to mention it.
Although maintained for some thirty years (including the eighteen spent as
prime-minister of Luxembourg) to record the identities of those who crossed
him, Mr Junker noted with some satisfaction it wasn't all that full because
people “rarely betray me”, adding “I am not vengeful, but I have a good memory.” It seems his warning “Be careful. Little Maurice is
waiting for you” was sufficient to ward of the betrayal and low skulduggery
for which the corridors of EU institutions are renowned.
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