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Have you ever thought about the LaserWriter
fonts and why you got them? This discussion is a transcript from TYPO-L, Oct-96 |
| To: TYPO-L@Danann.hea.ie From: magnusa@mail.pi.se (magnus alm) |
The fonts that have been distributed with the laserprinters since 1985 (Times, Palatino, New Century Schoolbook, AvantGarde etc.) have affected the choice of typefaces. At least, here in Sweden, Palatino was not widely used before 1985 (please correct me if I'm wrong...). Does anyone out there know how the set of fonts were chosen (Adobe licensed them from Linotype, OK, but why those exact typefaces)? -- Magnus
Date: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 20:55:35 -0700 | From: "standard. design solutions" <standard.@MAIL.IRI.SU.SE> Subject: Re: The first LaserWriter fonts
magnus alm wrote:
>
> The fonts that have been distributed with the laserprinters since 1985
> (Times, Palatino, New Century Schoolbook, AvantGarde etc.) have affected
> the choice of typefaces.
>
> At least, here in Sweden, Palatino was not widely used before 1985 (please
> correct me if I'm wrong...).
| EXACTLY! and have you noticed how Palatino have disappeared since microsoft stopped including it in their packages? -- Lee * standard. design solutions nordisk media analys/media marketing gruppen
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 1996 09:42:38 -0700 | From: David Lemon <typenerd@SLIP.NET> Subject: Re: The first LaserWriter fonts
Magnus Alm asked:
> The fonts that have been distributed with the laserprinters since 1985
> (Times, Palatino, New Century Schoolbook, AvantGarde etc.) have affected
> the choice of typefaces. ...
> Does anyone out there know how the set of fonts were chosen (Adobe licensed
> them from Linotype, OK, but why those exact typefaces)?
| The 35 basic printer fonts were selected in discussions between Adobe and Apple, since Adobe's first printer products were Apple LaserWriters. A representative from the Adobe Type group tried to keep it reasonable, but it wasn't an easy task. For example, Steve Jobs had to be talked out of including ITC Gorilla, and ITC American Typewriter almost became the "typewriter" design, until the type group person pointed out that it's not monospaced. The first LaserWriter had only 13 fonts: Times (4), Helvetica (4), Courier (4) and Symbol (1). ITC Zapf Chancery (Medium Italic) was planned as part of this set, but the Type 1 version wasn't ready in time. This seems a pretty obvious and utilitarian collection, given the office printing market of the day; what's a bit more mysterious is the 22 that were added later in the LaserWriter Plus. I'm not certain, but I suspect that Palatino made it in partly because of Sumner Stone's admiration for Hermann Zapf. Helvetica Narrow - the sad truth is that ROM space was extremely dear in those days, and an algorithmic set of fonts was irresistable. I believe ITC Avant Garde was another Jobs idea; ITC Bookman and New Century Schoolbook - I'm not sure; I guess they were intended to be utilitarian. At least one worked ;-) Disclaimer: I reached Adobe a couple years after all this transpired, and none of the original players are still there, so there's a certain amount of conjecture and hearsay here. -- David Lemon, type nerd
Date: Sun, 13 Oct 1996 21:17:39 +0100 | From: James Souttar <ancient@URIZEN.DEMON.CO.UK> Subject: Re: The first LaserWriter fonts
David writes:
>A representative from the Adobe Type group tried to keep it
>reasonable, but it wasn't an easy task. For example, Steve Jobs had
>to be talked out of including ITC Gorilla, and ITC American
>Typewriter almost became the "typewriter" design, until the type
>group person pointed out that it's not monospaced. [snip] I believe
>ITC Avant Garde was another Jobs idea;
| Ha! So Jobs had a hand in it... keeping *anything* reasonable with Jobs around requires all the diplomacy of a seasoned hostage negotiator. Makes sense though - anyone who has ever seen any of SJ's presentations will know that he regularly succumbs to the oddest type fads. Still, I have to admit that Gorilla would have been... kinda interesting ;-) Out of sheer curiosity, how did we get from the Adobe 'core set' to the Windows bundle? Substituting Monotype's Arial for Linotype's Helvetica seems like a logical enough step (even if it is one of those types that would look prettier with a bag over its head)... but what about the Palatino > Book Antiqua swap (Monotype already had the Z-Antiqua Zapf knockoff)? And wasn't there something about a lawsuit between ITC (?) and Monotype over another of the Windows font families? -- James
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 1996 18:26:05 -0400 | From: Andrew Boag <100414.2502@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Re: The first LaserWriter fonts
Well, the most recent message posted by James Souttar on the subject of the
first LaserWriter fonts finally sucked me in..I wonder why...?
| He said: >Out of sheer curiosity, how did we get from the Adobe 'core set' to the Windows bundle? Substituting Monotype's Arial for Linotype's Helvetica seems like a logical enough step (even if it is one of those types that would look prettier with a bag over its head)... but what about the Palatino > Book Antiqua swap (Monotype already had the Z-Antiqua Zapf knockoff)? And wasn't there something about a lawsuit between ITC (?) and Monotype over another of the Windows font families?< Just for the record, the the choice of the LaserWriter core fonts, Times, Helvetica, Courier, Symbol was I assume based on a tradition which had been developing for some time. The first office printers remember, date way back to the very early 1980s. IBM showed a 600dpi electro-erosion printer (the 4250) at DRUPA in 1982. This machine was aimed at the in-house publishing market since at $21,000, much less than a typesetting system of the period, it allowed the generation of artwork by small-scale office or professional publishing units. At around the same time IBM developed a 240dpi laser printer (the 3800), designed to output multiple originals, and so further service the in-house market. Monotype won contracts to supply fonts for these machines, among others. I think Xerox went to Linotype. Monotype also made fonts for Bull. These were all hand edited bitmap fonts. This really was the birth of the independent type business. Monotype's first contract for the IBM 4250 included Courier, Prestige, Letter Gothic, ITC Avant Garde, Mono Baskerville, Mono Bodoni, Mono Century and Cent Schoolbook, Helvetica (sub-licenced from Lino), Optima, Palatino, Rockwell, Souvenir, Times NR, Univers (this is not an exhaustive list). When it came to the 3800 laser printer I think IBM wanted a functional equivalent to Helvetica to save on the licencing wrangles, and this is when the Arial bitmaps were first created. But IBM named all the fonts iun the machine after rivers in colorado (!) so it was initially called Sonoran Sans. In other words, the scene was set way before the laser printer spanned the office/publishing divide, and before low-resolution-capable outline technologies allowed a range of fonts to be stored in ROM. However, I don't think I want to be drawn in over issues relating to Windows 3.1 core set and the plus set. There was a case with ITC. It was a crazy case. Monotype won it fair and square with independent expert witnesses, and the whole fiasco only emphasized the shaky copyright ground on which the font industry depends. There is nothing secret about any of this: it has all been widely reported I think. By the way, though formerly employed by Monotype, I am now independent, and have no axe to grind.
-- Andrew Boag
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 23:09:12 +0200 | From: Gustav Malmfors <gustav.malmfors@MBOX200.SWIPNET.SE> Subject: Re: The first LaserWriter fonts
magnus alm wrote:
>
> At least, here in Sweden, Palatino was not widely used before 1985 (please correct me if I'm wrong...).
| Hej, Magnus Far from being widely used, it was used with great skill by Bo Berndal and others at Nordisk Rotogravyr - one of Swedens finest rotogravure printers in the 1950s. And in fact, in 1933-58 one finds 4 books set in Palatino in "Svensk Bokkonst" - the selected books of each year. Considering the year of Palatinos' release, 1950, that must mean something. 1959-78 it is found in 7 books (Baskerville boasts 143 - the years 1954-73 is callad the Baskerville period by Per S. Ridderstad). Not much but still, its there. During the 50s and 60s Rotogravyr made quite a lot of use of Palatino in beautiful books filled with superb photography. Often narrative texts accompanied with motives of nature printed in black/white. Maybe they found its "written" forms with its organic spirit in line with the subject matter. A footnote, but a fine one. -- Gustav Malmfors Typografik gustav.malmfors@mbox200.swipnet.se, tel +46-8-768 23 21
Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 07:22:52 -0700 | From: David Lemon <typenerd@SLIP.NET> Subject: Re: The first LaserWriter fonts
James Souttar asked:
> Out of sheer curiosity, how did we get from the Adobe 'core set' to
> the Windows bundle? Substituting Monotype's Arial for Linotype's
> Helvetica seems like a logical enough step (even if it is one of
> those types that would look prettier with a bag over its head)... but
> what about the Palatino > Book Antiqua swap (Monotype already had the
> Z-Antiqua Zapf knockoff)? And wasn't there something about a lawsuit
> between ITC (?) and Monotype over another of the Windows font
> families?
| I don't understand why Monotype made a second analogue for Palatino either. I can say some things about the scenario behind the Windows bundle and the ITC lawsuit, although much of my information is second-hand and sketchy. Like many traditional type companies, Monotype had a number of "similar-to" or analogue designs in their library, dating from the years when type was tied to a specific platform, and each hardware company had to offer the popular designs in order to keep their hardware business viable. However, when they entered the cross-platform world of digital type, Monotype stopped this design plagiarism for a while and focussed on their great collection of classic designs. After a time, it seems that Linotype's dominance of the PostScript market (due to a more extensive library and to jumping onto the PostScript bandwagon much earlier, as well as owning part of the printer font set) was too threatening, and they decided they had to have core-font equivalents. The precedent, Times New Roman PS, was easy to justify. When Monotype came out with their first PostScript imagesetter, they were offended at the idea of having Linotype's Times in the RIP, considering Times originated with Monotype. They prepared a modified version of the original Times New Roman in which the glyphs were fitted onto the widths used in the 12-point Times of the LaserWriter set. I did the Type 1 production for the ROM font. Several years later, things got more serious, and Monotype created Arial. I've been told that the decision to make this an analogue of Helvetica was a late decision by new upper management, but others are certain the direction was there before that change transpired. Monotype had definitely returned to the slipperly slope, and continued with Z-Antiqua. Not much later Monotype became bedfellow with Microsoft, which was developing a PostScript clone (later scuddled) and had licensed TrueType. The motivation on Monotype's part is easy to understand; not only did TrueType offer the possibility of recovering from their belated adoption of PostScript, but Monotype was on extremely thin ice financially, and needed a large cash infusion to keep their heads above water. The Microsoft motivation stemmed from their business model, which involves never paying royalties. The core set consists of designs trademarked by ITC and Linotype (except for Courier, which is public domain, and Symbol, an un-trademarked Adobe design partly based on Times). ITC and Linotype will consider any serious offer about royalties, but "none" isn't in their vocabularies. When Microsoft released the Monotype analogues, ITC sued Monotype for breach of contract. The standard contract signed by companies which licensed ITC designs (which included Monotype) stipulated that the companies would not sell "similar" designs into the same markets. Thus the case turned on the question of whether the Monotype analogues were too similar to the ITC designs (Avant Garde Gothic, Bookman, New Century Schoolbook, Zapf Chancery and Zapf Dingbats). Although it's clear that the Monotype fonts weren't outright clones (harder to say in the case of Book Antiqua) I was surprised that Monotype found a fellow at Reading who was willing to testify they were not similar, and the court bought it. Personally, I'm still a bit bewildered about how Corsiva just happens to be swashed in the same way as Zapf Chancery... I'd speculate that the broken relations between ITC and Monotype, which remains a major font-seller, were one of the factors that pushed ITC into rethinking its model of subsisting on font license fees and royalties, and into trying its hand at selling fonts directly. -- David Lemon, type nerd
Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 11:40:08 PDT | From: Don Hosek <dhosek@QUIXOTE.COM> Subject: Re: The first LaserWriter fonts
On Wed, 16 Oct 1996 07:22:52 -0700 David Lemon wrote:
>Not much later Monotype became bedfellow with Microsoft, which was
>developing a PostScript clone (later scuddled) and had licensed TrueType.
>The motivation on Monotype's part is easy to understand; not only did
>TrueType offer the possibility of recovering from their belated adoption of
>PostScript, but Monotype was on extremely thin ice financially, and needed
>a large cash infusion to keep their heads above water.
| I was told by a high-ranking individual at Monotype that if it hadn't been for that deal, Monotype Typography would have been forced into bankruptcy. I'm not sure that I buy that as justification (after all, had MT been forced into bankruptcy, someone would have bought them out... so it's not like Times New Roman would have been lost forever). >When Microsoft released the Monotype analogues, ITC sued Monotype for >breach of contract. The standard contract signed by companies which >licensed ITC designs (which included Monotype) stipulated that the >companies would not sell "similar" designs into the same markets. Thus the >case turned on the question of whether the Monotype analogues were too >similar to the ITC designs (Avant Garde Gothic, Bookman, New Century >Schoolbook, Zapf Chancery and Zapf Dingbats). Although it's clear that the >Monotype fonts weren't outright clones (harder to say in the case of Book >Antiqua) I was surprised that Monotype found a fellow at Reading who was >willing to testify they were not similar, and the court bought it. >Personally, I'm still a bit bewildered about how Corsiva just happens to be >swashed in the same way as Zapf Chancery... New Century Schoolbook is a Linotype design which is a revision of their linecasting version of the ATF face Century Schoolbook. Lanston Monotype had an agreement with ATF allowing them to produce any ATF face for their casting equipment (and similarly ATF could produce foundry versions of Lanston faces). To what extent this agreement allowed English Monotype to do the same, I don't know, but in any event, Century Schoolbook is sufficiently old that it would not be covered under copyright law were it able to be copyrighted. Century Gothic is an especially interesting case. Its origin is Monotype's 20th Century (which originated at Lanston) and was a very close clone of Futura. In reproportioning 20th Century to become Century Gothic, the result was a face that is neither Avante Garde, 20th Century or Futura but is something new, surprisingly enough. Of the whole set, this is perhaps the most interesting face for that reason. As for ITC, some of their designs have murky origins as well. ITC Caslon, for example, appears to have been created by starting with Ludlow's Caslon Heavy and progressively shaving down the weights. I have been told that at least one prominent designer of the early ITC faces never actually drew any of his letters, but rather started with an historical original, and progressively photographed and over/underexposed the results, using a bit of ink and white-out to clean up the edges as he went along. When one starts to dig into the origins of faces, there's a lot of muddy ground there. I think that any progress into type copyright would require a formal declaration of amnesty for past "crimes" ;-)
-- Don Hosek, dhosek@quixote.com, Quixote Digital Typography
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 07:49:02 -0700 | From: David Lemon <typenerd@SLIP.NET> Subject: Re: The first LaserWriter fonts
I wrote:
> When Microsoft released the Monotype analogues, ITC sued Monotype for
> breach of contract. The standard contract signed by companies which
> licensed ITC designs (which included Monotype) stipulated that the
> companies would not sell "similar" designs into the same markets. Thus the
> case turned on the question of whether the Monotype analogues were too
> similar to the ITC designs (Avant Garde Gothic, Bookman, New Century
> Schoolbook, Zapf Chancery and Zapf Dingbats). Although it's clear that the
> Monotype fonts weren't outright clones (harder to say in the case of Book
> Antiqua) I was surprised that Monotype found a fellow at Reading who was
> willing to testify they were not similar, and the court bought it.
> Personally, I'm still a bit bewildered about how Corsiva just happens to be
> swashed in the same way as Zapf Chancery...
| and Don Hosek supplied an examination of the history behind some of the ITC designs and the Monotype analogues, ending with the comment: > When one starts to dig into the origins of faces, there's a lot of > muddy ground there. I think that any progress into type copyright > would require a formal declaration of amnesty for past "crimes" ;-) I agree that many type companies have libraries which include designs of questionable originality (and am proud to work for one which has not sunk to this practice - with the possible exception of a few faces we license). However, ITC's suit against Monotype's analogues was not based on copyright nor originality, but on similarity. I believe the clause in their contract was intended to prevent things like having Linotype selling the pre-ITC versions of New Century Schoolbook or Galliard, which were originally Linotype designs. As DH points out, Monotype's analogues did have clear associations with designs that predated the ITC ones. Of course, they were also clearly modified to reflect the ITC ones - matching not only metrics but also weights, heights, and design features (many, but not all, of the latter). Thus history wasn't the point, and similarity was the issue. Certainly intent wasn't. I must give Monotype its historical due. Monotype pretty much invented the notion of reviving classic designs (Dante is one of my favorites) and also did new designs that have since become classics (e.g. Gill Sans). I don't mean to imply that they've done nothing but borrow from the success of others. I just wish that sort of stuff could fade with the old technology that semi-justified it. -- David Lemon, type nerd
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 23:44:06 +0100 | From: James Souttar <ancient@URIZEN.DEMON.CO.UK> Subject: Re: The first LaserWriter fonts
David:
(Beautiful piece, BTW)
>I don't mean to imply that they've done nothing but borrow from the
>success of others. I just wish that sort of stuff could fade with
>the old technology that semi-justified it.
| The trouble is, now they've become software companies, the old poachers have become the most assiduous gamekeepers. Notwithstanding the dubious parentage of much of their intellectual property, typefounders rarely pass up an opportunity to offer us a homily on the subject of piracy. IMO, typefounders talking about piracy is about as rich as politicians talking about morality. -- James
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 14:05:57 -0500 | From: Tom Rickner <tomr@NY.MONOTYPEUSA.COM> Subject: Re: The first LaserWriter fonts
Since Ira Mirochnick (president of Monotype Typography Inc) is not a member of this list, he requested I post the
following letter regarding Monotype and ITC.
|
-- Thomas Rickner
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As an ITC subscriber, ITC felt that Monotype should not be able to produce a set of typefaces which were competitive (functional equivalent) with the 10 ITC typefaces which were in the LaserWriter 35 collection. ITC never really claimed that the Monotype's new typefaces were ripoffs, they just claimed that we could not do what we had done. These typefaces were very important to ITC and they were interested in protecting their market. Monotype, on the other hand, was interested in addressing the needs of Microsoft and the Windows market for an alternative set to the existing standard typefaces. The dispute, in simple terms was primarily centered around anything in the subscriber agreement which Monotype may have voilated. ITC was making claims in the marketplace that Monotype had violated the agreement. Monotype was of the belief that it had not violated the agreement. Monotype decided to ask the Federal District Court for a declaratory judgement that it had not violated its agreement with ITC, as it felt that the issue was hurting its marketing efforts. The legal battle culminated with a trial. At the conclusion of the trial, the district court ruled that Monotype had not violated its agreement with ITC. In the end, Monotype and ITC have continued to work together very well and the whole issue is far behind us. -- Ira Mirochnick President, Monotype Typography Inc |
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