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ManchuRegular font in The Dictator website parody.
Posted by Vladimir Tamari in
26 Feb 2012 — 6:19am
26 Feb 2012 — 6:19am
The website below has text in English and Wadiyan - an imaginary faux Arabic language used to promote the movie The Dictator. Click on the top right icon "Wadiyan" to see the script and top left for the English. I will not comment on the movie or website as such, but have some technical questions about the font and how was it implemented. I saw "ManchuRegular used as a font family in the html code. Is this a web font? I understand that Manchu is one of those languages faced with extinction - who made this font? Thanks Tom Milo for this reference.
The Republic of Wadiya
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26 Feb 2012 — 6:26am
Dont let be tricked by the chosen name of the font. If you copy some text and change font, you will see that they’re just english words rendered with a faux arabic font.
26 Feb 2012 — 6:38am
ah, I see - I wonder what is the actual font name. It is used as a web font isn't it, but how?
26 Feb 2012 — 8:11am
The actual font name is Manchu Regular. Switching to Manchu is simply a change of font; the English text is left unchanged. "ManchuRegular" is defined in http://www.republicofwadiya.com/css/stylesheet.css with @font-face. The font files manch-webfont.woff, manch-webfont.ttf etc were generated with the Squirrel Font-Face Generator. (Note: the font is left to right, one glyph per latin letter).
26 Feb 2012 — 6:05pm
Thank you Michel for the full explanation - it is a chance for me to learn about webfonts. Interestingly the Manchu language (which is threatened with extinction) uses theManchu scriptwritten vertically.
26 Feb 2012 — 10:08pm
I don't understand why they couldn't have at least
renamed the font to avoid an allusion to Manchu.
> I will not comment on the movie
There could never be an exact antidote to something
like this (people don't bite the hand that feeds them)
but you might enjoy "Tropic Thunder" as much as I did.
hhp
27 Feb 2012 — 3:13am
> renamed the font to avoid an allusion to Manchu
Yes that would have been considerate... but that is hardly a virtue of the guy who gave us Borat and the others farces!
I did see Tropic Thunder :)
27 Feb 2012 — 4:42am
So much for Fu Manchu…
27 Feb 2012 — 5:33am
Or Fu Manchu Font !
27 Feb 2012 — 6:32am
Actually I liked Borat. Even though the fat guy is Armenian,
and he was actually speaking Armenian in the movie! I liked
it because it exposes uncomfortable truths. This one seems
to distract from them.
hhp
28 Feb 2012 — 8:20pm
Yes Borat was hilarious - but I suppose not if you are from Kazakhstan!