Friday, September 29, 2006

Typefaces, Helvetica and Pantone 292

The difference between fonts and typefaces.

A tangentially related story: I had to laugh the other night when I went to a bar after work with some colleagues (karaoke — and, no, I didn't sing). A man was wearing a T-shirt that said simply "HELVETICA." Only, it obviously wasn't in Helvetica. I complimented the shirt, and he told me it got a lot of praise, "only most people don't know it's not Helvetica." Not sure why they liked it so much, then. But I guess all types of people like simplicity in design.

In other design non-news: A friend has recently rediscovered the Magnetic Fields, a favorite band of mine. We had a fun discussion of the song "Reno Dakota," which includes the lyrics:
Reno Dakota there's not an iota
Of kindness in you
You know you enthrall me
And yet you don't call me
It's making me blue
Pantone 292
It prompted me to go on a hunt for Pantone 292 on the Web. I ended up finding some fun photos on Flickr. And then I spent too much time looking at these real-life Pantone matches.

OK, now back to thinking about words ...

7 Comments:

At 1:17 PM, September 30, 2006, Anonymous Anonymous said...

What? Not a single comment about PMS in an offbeat discussion about Pantone colors? :)

 
At 1:55 PM, September 30, 2006, Anonymous Anonymous said...

If you click on the link about fonts and typefaces, be sure to read the comments posted afterward. The topic is more clear then.

 
At 2:40 PM, September 30, 2006, Blogger Jim said...

So, is this something else we can blame on Microsoft? Before now, I didn't know the difference between fonts and typefaces, but when I go into the Font dialogue box in Word, I choose

Font: Arial

Should it be

Typeface: Arial

Or is Font correct, because I can choose between Arial, Arial Narrow, Arial Black, Arial Unicode MS?

I mean, they are all digital fonts, but in actuality, aren't we (based on Mr. Haley's argument) choosing a specific typeface when we determine whether or not we want Helvetica or Garamond?

 
At 2:26 PM, October 02, 2006, Blogger Willo said...

Okay, Now I have wasted too much time looking at pantone color phtosets on Flickr.

Thanks!

 
At 10:37 PM, October 16, 2006, Blogger Nicole said...

Leebert (133b3r7): PMS and vibrant colors? I'm ooked out.

 
At 6:17 AM, February 11, 2010, Blogger Aaron Skipper said...

I was always lead to believe that a font was the collection of physical letterforms, in either wood or lead and a typeface is the printed form which is left on the page in ink. The confusion came about when letterpress became redundant.

 
At 11:52 AM, September 16, 2010, Anonymous Viagra Online said...

I don't think that people have to be worried about what they're using so if they use that is because they like in the first moment that they saw it so it doesn't mean that we have to know about everything and it never matter when we talk about cloth.Generic Viagra Buy Viagra

 

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