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Pointing hand icon?
Posted by union in
14 Nov 2004 — 3:23pm
14 Nov 2004 — 3:23pm
Hi
I was wondering if anyone knows the name of the pointing hand icon which appears in some fonts. I visited a museum in Italy last week, and I was surprised to see these pointing icons used in a book from the 16th century.
Anyone know the history of this symbol?
Thanks
Jim
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14 Nov 2004 — 3:41pm
Fists and/or hands, as far as I recall.
Additional background available here:
http://www.typophile.com/forums/messages/30/4549.html
14 Nov 2004 — 4:53pm
The traditional English name is, as Grant notes, 'fist'. As an esoteric historical aside, Garamond's fists had six digits, here reproduced in our Garamond 1530:
15 Nov 2004 — 2:25am
"Printer's fist, fist, fist indicator, hand, poiting hand, indicator, index, digit, you name it."
From the book:
'H
15 Nov 2004 — 4:38am
16 Nov 2004 — 10:40am
John, I'm counting seven. Unless one of the fingers is missing, or conjoined, but then we'd have to define "finger"...
hhp
16 Nov 2004 — 11:34am
Ah, such pointed discussion. I have to hand it to you all!
16 Nov 2004 — 4:00pm
Here's my 2
16 Nov 2004 — 5:06pm
Hey, can't you guys stop talking about fists and get back to talking about hands?
Sorry...I never could resist a pun, good or bad. By the way, does anyone know the history behind calling text hand? Is that where we get handwriting from? Come on, give me a hand. (Ok, I'll stop.)
27 Nov 2004 — 6:29am
got a mac icon.
AS
mano (0.8 k)
27 Nov 2004 — 6:58am
After all, it is digital typography :-)
27 Nov 2004 — 1:51pm
Tiffany, that is splendid! Next time I design a fist for a typeface, I'm going to model it on the hand of Constantine.
27 Nov 2004 — 2:41pm
In UTF-8 the following are the html character codes for various hands (note, this probably won't display in IE... Gecko based browsers won't have a problem)
☚ BLACK LEFT POINTING INDEX
☛ BLACK RIGHT POINTING INDEX
☜ WHITE LEFT POINTING INDEX
☝ WHITE UP POINTING INDEX
☞ WHITE RIGHT POINTING INDEX
☟ WHITE DOWN POINTING INDEX
ON PREVIEW: Turns out the forum software doesn't allow character codes. You'll have to test it for yourselves.
16 Nov 2004 — 11:00am
Not really on topic but I thought it fun to post it anyway.
9 Apr 2007 — 10:04am
Hi all,
Can anyone recommend a good-looking fist? I was searching for the typeface that has fist and stumbled onto this discussion. I don't seem to have Garamond 1530 in my system. Thanks!
9 Apr 2007 — 11:07am
Back in September James Craig asked this question on the ATypI list:
"Ever wonder about the origins of the pointing hand?"
And then, noting that "This article may tell you more than you wish to know about the subject," posted this link:
http://www.livesandletters.ac.uk/papers/FOR_2005_04_002.html
Check it out; fascinating.
powers
9 Apr 2007 — 11:40am
Will gets the "Fickle Finger of Fate" award :-)
ChrisL
3 Jan 2010 — 12:54pm
I am having a go at modern interpretations of fists...
The VR Glove already exists in 'ISOGLYPH' which is a rounded font but for what I am working on now: "Myopia', I am looking to develop something a little more pointy. I am not comfortable with seeing the fingers (it seems too polite) so I will try and put a glove on this one aswell...
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Michael Hernan