although it looks similar to news gothic in a few ways too. but, the trap on the v is what gives this away, amonth other things like the weird stroke irregularity.

> the trap on the v

What's really funny is that this crappy generic font has that great feature, but Adobe's only remaining resident designer, the great Slimbach, never puts traps in his work! Even the smallest, darkest sizes of Minion don't have any. In contrast, Miriad does have traps - I guess that was Twombly's doing - and maybe one reason they didn't get along... Even Twombly's earliest designs (like Mirarae) have wonderful traps.

hhp

http://www.themicrofoundry.com/ss_trapping1.html

BTW, what's really interesting about traps is that they don't just counteract gain (which is often not pronounced enough to fret about), they also compensate for human optical strangeness (at small sizes).

hhp

Okay, so, in addition to being more than a little drunk, I am now also officially ashamed of myself. Adobe Sans?? Did I really ask for that to be identified? Shoot me now and give HRant all my type books, including About Face, my newest purchase and my new #1 fav. Practically bedtime reading.

Tiffany, 3 minutes! You get ranked up there with Stephen and Cheshiredave.

You're cool, Stephen. ;)

BTW Tiffany, the link to my rant was actually meant for you, as most of the answers to your question "...weren't ever designed to be actually used. Were they?" are in there.

In a way.

Somewhere.

Burried beneath the shouting and the cursing.

I'm glad my obsessive compulsive disorder is of some use to somebody...

the glaring notches in meta show up when it's used for display,
which is ugly if you ask me. not that it's inherently ugly, just
that it was meant for small sizes on poor quality paper. i don't
understand why dodge and a few other car companies have
been using it for their ads. here's another example of ink traps:
not very pretty, but you can't see the trap at 7 points on newsprint.
it remains extremely readable though.

The trap is the deformation at the inside-bottom of the "v" part. That's exactly where ink gain would gather most.

It's there at all sizes because there's only one outline file! That's one reason an optical MM axis is so nice: you can vary trap size (among other things).

hhp

The green arrow. If you look closely, you'll see that the descending insides of the v-shape curve slightly here, creating extra space between the two than there would be if they continued straight.

If you think traps are fun, wait 'til you find out about nicks.

Bit confused about the nick term.

The larger-sized metal version of Sistina (the Palatino titling), 72-point, had visible "nicks" cast into and along the physical "outline." The smaller sizes don't exhibit the feature. I'd always assumed these were ink "drains" rather than ink traps.

Different animal?

Why would they make nicks in the photo days?

>Why would they make nicks in the photo days?

Gerald, nicks were used in photofilm for essentially the same reason that "ink traps" were used in metal, only in reverse. If you project light through an open shape with an acute angle, the light will tend to make the corner round. My recollection of physics and optics is a little fuzzy, but I think the phenomenon is called "diffraction" (or is it "diffusion"?). This is basically the same principle that causes dappled light filtered through trees to appear as round, circular projections on the ground, even though the openings between leaves are random polygonal shapes. I believe the degree of rounding varies depending upon the thickness of the film substrate.

You can try this experiment: Take a piece of card stock (a 3x5 index card works well) and cut a square opening in it, say half and inch or so. Place the card on a piece of paper and shine a desk lamp directly over it. Now, lift the edge of the card just slightly so that you can peek under and see the projected square of light on the paper. You'll notice that the corners of the projected square are not sharp. The closer the card is to the paper the sharper the image, but there will still be slight rounding in the corners. Nicks were used to compensate for this rounding.

Karen, a "nick" -- Hrant's "thorn" is a little more descriptive -- is where an outside corner is exaggerated in its sharpness. It's basically the negative image of the "trap" discussed above.

I hope that's clear.

-- K.

I don't know if I'm gonna get shot at for admitting this, but I already surviced confessing I didn't like Zapf's work, so I guess I'll push my luck.

I quite like the integration of ink traps as an artistic statement in some contemporary typefaces. The inner shapes in some charaters of Citizen, thought they have nothing to do with ink traps, remind a bit of them, and a recent type family which uses them to great effect and which I'm absolutely smitten with is of course Eunuverse.

Yves, one person who's been getting serious about using traps aesthetically is Christian Shwartz.

> thorns, or ink drains

No, you were right! Karen's green arrow is a trap. A thorn is a protrusion from the letterform (much more rare).

hhp

I did something so that it would be even clearer to newbies like me.



The traps ARE really subtle. I would never have noticed them.

Isaac, you got promoted to Regular because you crossed the 100-posts mark. Congrats! Feels good, innit? ;)

Gerald, the dfTYPE PDF is perfect didactic material. Great stuff!

Hrant, I admit I'll have to take a closer look at Mr. Schwartz' work. I really do like what he does though: tFB's Pennsylvania and Emigre's Los Feliz spring to mind, but he did so many good types it's getting difficult to keep track of his work.
BTW last week I received the House Industries Catalogue No. 31 which extensively shows the Neutraface collection and it's a beauty to behold. I must say I wasn't really impressed when I first saw it online. Seeing it in print in extensive text settings completely reconciled me with considering using a Futura-like geometric sans as a text face though. Gorgeous work.

Very wise, Cheshire-san.

Under breath: I'm unworthy of all your flattery, boys.

I don't see the trap on the Y? Is it the little nip near the bottom? Surely ink doesn't gather there even without the gap?

Officina has it too. But I never thought it was anything other than the design of the font. I shows up at all sizes doesn't it?