Typophile - What do you call fonts that... - Comments

A quote from this thread has

Joe Pemberton — Wed, 2 Apr 2008 19:07:08 -0700

A quote from this thread has been ripped from it’s context and Twitter’d here: http://www.twitter.com/typophile

Carry on.

um... i don’t really care

Ch — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 13:19:32 -0700

um... i don’t really care either, just playin’ the game.

do i win if nobody else plays ? smiling emoticon.

The more I think about it,

Mark Simonson — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 13:16:29 -0700

The more I think about it, the more I like the term “theme”. “Novelty” is traditional, but makes about as much sense as “miscellaneous” or “other” or “bizarre” or “unusual”. It just says the fonts look... different. “Theme” goes more to the intention of the designer.

I’ve also seen decorated fonts (basically normal letters with other stuff added) called “florid” or “floriated”, although that seems to imply only flower-like additions.

I think all font designers

typodermic — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 12:45:09 -0700

I think all font designers are familiar with suggestions from non-designers such as: why don’t you make a font with letters made of puppies, hot dogs, naked people etc. Of all the terms I’ve heard, “theme fonts” seems to the most obvious and many font sites categorize them that way. I don’t see how splitting into abstract sub-genres would increase clarity. Functionally, Ch’s categories all function the same way. In a railway theme font: railway cars with letters on them, letters made of tracks, or letters that look like railway cars all perform the same basic function. Choosing one over another is just a matter of taste

Concrete subgenres are self-evident. Flower theme fonts, footprint theme fonts, feces theme fonts etc.

* Fonts with each letter

Ch — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 08:55:06 -0700

* Fonts with each letter made of a different element (different tools, musical instruments, animals)

theme fonts

* Fonts with each letter made of a common element (nails, logs, barbed wire, typewriter keys, paper clips, bamboo, people in different poses)

gimmick fonts

* Fonts with letters embellished with picture elements (hearts, flowers, stars, eyeballs, bees, bugs, vines)

decorated fonts

* Fonts with letters inside a picture element (animals, soldiers, trains, blocks, balloons, pumpkins, footprints, leaves)

picto-fonts

...and what is the prize

Renaissance Man — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 08:32:08 -0700

...and what is the prize going to be...?

How about 4 issues of U&lc, one for the best answer in each of the 4 categories?

The overall heading I’ll concede as novelty fonts.
Under that heading, I’m looking for the best descriptor of:
* Fonts with each letter made of a different element (different tools, musical instruments, animals)
* Fonts with each letter made of a common element (nails, logs, barbed wire, typewriter keys, paper clips, bamboo, people in different poses)
* Fonts with letters embellished with picture elements (hearts, flowers, stars, eyeballs, bees, bugs, vines)
* Fonts with letters inside a picture element (animals, soldiers, trains, blocks, balloons, pumpkins, footprints, leaves)

You can let me pick the best answer, or you can vote on it.

In case of duplicate answers, or answers already suggested, the one with the most best answers or the first best answer wins. Obviously, thare may be overlaps, or my four categories may not be worthy of differentiation.

...and what is the prize

Mark Simonson — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 07:51:46 -0700

...and what is the prize going to be...?

http://daughternumberthree.blogspot.com/2008/03/full-metal-dog.html

“Maybe we should have a

dberlow — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 06:55:21 -0700

“Maybe we should have a contest!”
...and what is the prize going to be for my Spam-carved connecting script face with Beowolf-ish pine nut inserts on a bed of spikey greens with rasberry vinegrette?

Cheers!

If you’re going to make a

Chipman223 — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 06:14:59 -0700

If you’re going to make a typeface just so it looks like some real-life artifact, why not just go all out like our good friend Stefan Sagmeister (a little shocking perhaps, i think the letters were done with intestines, thus the link, and not the actual image)?:

http://www.sagmeister.com/worknew8.html

A lot of these fonts are

Mark Simonson — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 09:54:45 -0700

A lot of these fonts are like an onomatopoeia — a word that imitates the sound it describes. Or, how about calling them “theme” fonts?

> presumably short for

Don McCahill — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 06:14:26 -0700

> presumably short for pictogram or picture

Good guess, but my understanding is that a pi font is named after ... pi (the greek letter). To the early printers, anything not in the Latin alphabet was pi.

I’ve been calling these

Renaissance Man — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 06:13:49 -0700

I’ve been calling these “picture element fonts” because I didn’t know what they were called. When someone asked me about them, I felt embarrassed because I didn’t know what the “correct” name was, assuming there was a label for these kinds of fonts.

I Googled “novelty fonts” and came up with this site http://ingrimayne.com/fonts2/_noveltya.html that referred to “fonts in which the letters are made from things, from paper clips to bugs to tools” as letterbat fonts, which I had heard of a long time ago but didn’t remember.

I agree with Nick that there is a distinction between letters that are made of things, like tools, and fonts that are embellished with vines, hearts, stars, etc. I’m not sure I like rebus fonts; that reminds me of the game (show) “Win, Lose, or Draw,” or Pictionary.

So far, I like Novelty, Picture fonts, and Pi letters, letterbats, embellished fonts, decorated fonts. I even found dinglets and dingfonts in a Google search!

This probably doesn’t interest the pros who set type or do layouts for magazines, advertisements, newspapers, brochures, etc. But every once in a while it’s nice to use fun fonts. Even though Judith Sutcliffe’s Hibiscus is not very much liked by professional types, I once saw it used in a travel advertisement. And I’m sure more than one restaurant has used a font embellished with chili peppers. And yes, some of these fonts shouldn’t ever see the light of day again (e.g., fonts made out of spermatozoon, poop, etc). Whether we like or hate all or some or none of them, why shouldn’t there be a taxonomy of even these fonts?

Maybe we should have a contest!

• Fonts with each letter made of a different element (different tools, musical istruments, animals)
• Fonts with each letter made of a common element (nails, logs, barbed wire, typewriter keys, paper clips, bamboo, people in different poses)
• Fonts with letters embelished with picture elements (hearts, flowers, stars, eyeballs, bees, bugs, vines)
• Fonts with letters inside a picture element (animals, soldiers, trains, blocks, baloons, pumpkins, footprints, leaves)

Even if this doesn’t go any further, I thank those of you who uderstood my question — and contributed ideas, comments, suggestions, and answers.

Decorated fonts? In my

Florian Hardwig — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 04:09:09 -0700

Decorated fonts? In my private classification system, these would go into the ‘Wood & Co’ folder – where they’ll meet the eponymous Logger, Drift Wood and Campfire – and likely won’t see the light of day again. : )

On my computer, I store

loremipsum — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 03:07:15 -0700

On my computer, I store these in the folder named “Pi Letters”. An ad hoc solution by a non-native speaker :-)

Fantasia (?) ...

AGL — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 03:04:00 -0700

Fantasia (?) ...

What do you call fonts that...

Renaissance Man — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 17:55:28 -0700

I know dingbat fonts are also called Pi fonts, (presumably short for pictogram or picture) and are symbols, logos, line drawings, fleurons, etc.

I don’t know if there is a name for a font:
(a) that has picture elements in it, i.e., letters that include hearts, flowers, flames, stars, etc.
(b) that uses symbols to form letters, e.g., Toolbox, Critter, Cutout, etc.

If there is a term for either or both of these kinds of fonts, please enlighten me. (I’m looking for something beyond, “Yeah, bad fonts!)

Thanks.