I don’t get your point, Vince ... what could be your idea? Anonymous posts are as annoying as they can get, but I guess it is up to everyone here to decide if they want to answer or not ...

you look at ’new’ and it’s about 5 ’what font is this’ boring as hell and if it keeps up it will be the death of typophile just like comp.fonts or other older places that had professionals sharing ideas but it turned into idiots pirates sharing fonts.

Historically, some people have had a problem with type-IDs.
Personally I don’t care much for them (although they have
sometimes diverged into interesting discussions) but really,
there are bigger things to complain about.

hhp

Vince, if a stranger stopped you on the street to ask for directions to someplace you knew was just around the corner, would you advise them to get a map?

As someone who sometimes helps people identify fonts here, I’d like to make a few observations.

Identifying fonts is not an easy thing, and it gets harder every day, given the continual growth of the font universe. It’s easy to say “go look it up yourself,” but that can easily take hours if the font is not common or doesn’t happen to be in the particular font catalogs you happen to have, with no guarantee you will find what you are looking for. Many of the people who come here have said they have already tried to do it themselves and failed. I have several dozen specimen books, from around 1900 to the present, and even I am unable to identify a font sometimes, even with all these resources at hand. The typical designer may have a couple of font catalogs around. Most designers I know can identify common fonts on sight, but beyond that, they just shrug. As for non-designers, I think a service like this is rather a consciousness raising experience for them.

The main problem is that fonts cannot be easily and unambiguously categorized. Many systems have been devised, but none are as reliable or complete as, say, a dictionary or a thesaurus. When someone is looking at a font, they may not even have a good idea where to start looking. You have examples like the FontShop catalog in which a script font might be found under “Script” or “Display” for no obvious reason. And when you have hundreds of fonts listed alphabetically under one category, make sure you’ve had your morning coffee. Finding fonts in font catalogs is more an art than a science.

On the other hand, you have the Font ID Board here, where there are people who can identify fonts on sight, even obscure ones. In fact, when I contribute, I spend more time finding a sample to link to than identifying the font. And those sample links are nearly always to a place where you can buy the font.

Personally, unless I can identify the font immediately, or it’s something I am curious about myself, I pass. Plus, as a type designer, spending time poring over type specimen books is never time wasted.

Anyway, I realize that many people here have little interest in this topic area. I actually avoided myself it for a long time. I think what Typophile needs to do is add some kind of filter to the “new” or “active topic” pages so people can filter out the topic areas they are not interested in.

Vince, I have dragged the ’Forums’ URL from the address window to the toolbar in Firefox. Then I just click on the Forums bookmark on the toolbar so I don’t have to go to the home page.

Also because the powers that be haven’t yet restored the navigation menu with ’Design’, ’General’ etc to be accessible from every page *ahem, ahem, hint, hint*, I have also dragged the categories I usually look at to the toolbar. Then I can use the bookmarks on the toolbar to navigate.

I think it is great that Mark and others are willing to help out in this category.

I am not a big fan of this category of posting in general either but I think Mark is right. And eloquent too. One day I could be stuck & will feel quite grateful if I am helped.

Certainly if you don’t know the answer (or do) you could point at the resource you think most likely to help. When the resources area comes back then there might be a type ID area that points at these resources.

The one thing I don’t like is the often ambiguous titling of the ’what is this font’ category of posting. But that is just what a new or uninvolved user is likely to do & there isn’t much that can be done about that.

Finally, if somebody is willing to ID fonts & is good at it ( & they are very good ) then I would have to say it’s not too much skin off my nose!

BTW, thanks again for posting the Cleartype hinting info!

Mark, I agree. And it’s certainly at least entertaining to watch you and the other master hounds nail an ID so well and as fast. I dropped out of the hunts long ago when I realized I was not good enough. Also, if I were a type user (I just make the stuff) I would clearly be an avid fan of the type-ID section on practical grounds.

One other thing: some people (like Gary Much on Typo-L, I remember) have opposed type identification on the grounds that it promotes piracy. To that I would say that anybody who we manage to reel into Typophile by whatever means is more likely to reduce any piratical activity when exposed to actual humans who make the stuff.

—

One thing I am curious about though is the reasons people ask for an ID. Is it mostly out of curiously about something that appeals to them, or they need to ID a font from an old setting so they can make more stuff with it? Survey says?

hhp

>Vince, if a stranger stopped you on the street to ask for directions to someplace you knew was just around the corner, would you advise them to get a map?

What do I look like the London A-Z?

“One thing I am curious about though is the reasons people ask for an ID”

Sometimes work (a graphic designer needs to redesign a logo; a client wants that font...) sometimes fun or influenced by the media (mostly tv & films)

...and sometimes you see someting like “you know what do do” — no please, no thank you; if I see that I don’t try to ID.

I find browsing the type id forum quite entertaining, instructive (and frustrating, trying to pummel my poor brain into remembering the name of something I know perfectly well).

One of the reasons some requests come with a short/curt message is that the poster is not confident in their English, I can’t see why that should count against them. As for unknown posters, everybody is identified by some kind of user name if you have developed some disliking for them just don’t answer their post. There was a situation recently of people posting one letter which was some competition but that seems to have died off (been frightened off by Yves).

The categories I have noticed seem to be:
Football Shirts (I’m recreating the Barcelona strip for a computer game)
Work (I need to recreate this logo)
Idle curiosity (I saw this lovely font)
Film/TV (what font do they use in X [usually Trajan])
and Weddings (my sister wants to use this font on her invitations)

Tim

BTW Vince, what exactly is an “unknown poster”?
The new Typophile does not allow “pure” anonymous
posting any more - so I think we’re really all on
equal footing here.

hhp

It would appear that Type ID is the busiest category in terms of new topics, from my informal observations. It is a category that I very rarely visit. This does not detract at all from my enjoyment of Typophile. My favourite category is Critique, which is generally pretty slow in terms of new topics and comments. The two different styles of posting and comment seem to co-exist quite happily, as far as I am concerned.

I suppose this is like a newspaper. I do not have much interest in sport, but I would not say that a newspaper is boring just because it contains many pages of sport. As long as it has the information and comment I enjoy reading, it is a good newspaper.

I somewhat agree with part of Vince’s sentiments, and I think a reasonable compromise would be to remove the ID board posts from the list of candidates for “Newest” and “Hottest” on the home flash. Might that make sense?

Makes a lot of sense. And even more useful would be to indicate that a thread is an ID (or whatever) direcly on the Tracker page.

hhp

My only request to the Type Id was to have the posters read the FAQ before posting (if possible). The only problem I see with Type Id is the asking of the same question over and over again, when the answer is in the FAQ.

If someone makes a game out of type ID it is a bit irritating, unless I guess, the responder is into that and doesn’t have much time for anything else.

And though I rarely post questions to any e-mail group or list (since you can find whatever you want on the web ((and elsewhere)) by just doing the work yourself), I would hope that the truly needy (those who have not acquired reference skills and will actually accept the opinions of others) have access to useful advice.

Gerald