Lydian Displace-d on MyFonts

Maurice Meilleur

Just different enough? Displace (http://goo.gl/fb/q0iR4) and Lydian (http://goo.gl/4R3YZ).

kupfers

“The Futura of Lydians” (http://typedrawers.com/discussion/262/gryffensee-the-futura-of-blackletter).

Christian Thalmann

It may be a subtle difference from an objective point of view, but subjectively Displace feels rather distinct to me — maybe like a stencil version of Lydian.

Max Phillips

Speaking as a regular user of Lydian, I like it, and think it's got its own virtues. I'd certainly call it an homage rather than a knockoff.

James Puckett

What really bothers me is that the description of Displace on MyFonts makes no mention of Lydian or Warren Chappell, instead ascribing the design to calligraphy. This is plagiarism plain and simple, and MyFonts should either rewrite the description or add Chappell as a designer.

Ralf

It's certainly a completely new drawing (and not a digital knock-off). And it's even plausible to end up with that design without ever having seen Lydian, because the design principle is just so simple.
So I don’t really see any problems here.

Max Phillips

MyFonts should either rewrite the description or add Chappell as a designer.

I think that's certainly a bridge too far. If they do that, they should add Paul Renner as designer to a couple thousand geometric typefaces, including Avant Garde and VAG.

Maurice Meilleur

I also think it's drawn from scratch, and I probably should have noted that. My point is closer to James's: the similarities are so obvious that Chappell and Lydian should have gotten a shout-out. If there's one thing I've learned about type design--and there may in fact be only one thing--it's that history matters. Displace's designer instead writes as if this approach to letterforms is entirely new.

Jack Jennings

I can't seem to find anywhere where the designer claims that this approach is "entirely new". It is only written that the type is made "as if it were draw calligraphicaly", which seems like the opposite to me (rooted in history)…

David Sudweeks

You'll also find work strongly influenced by Young Finesse, Eclat, and FF Fontesque in his catalogue. It looks to me like he's learning by copying others—nothing wrong with that necessarily—but then to take and accept credit for it, well, he should know that's wrong.

Maurice Meilleur

If I show you something I made and only talk about its formal qualities, the implication is that it's original to me, or at least came out of my own imagination. Hence 'writes as if'.

For all I know this did come out of the designer's own imagination--as others off-list have also suggested, perhaps the tool (actual or metaphorical) the designer used to form the letters suggests these forms so strongly that he came up with something very like Lydian all on his own. But it's a pretty refined bit of design, and it just didn't seem likely to me that one could work at that level without being aware of such an obvious predecessor. And David's lead suggests I could be right about that hunch.

Deleted Account

I love this. I hate Lydian. They can't be the same. The most shocking thing to me is that there are "only two" of these so far, so far along in the democratization. I'd think this'd be a whole class by now and no one'd be arguing about it.

Jan Schmoeger

I see Displace as more of an 'extrusion' geometry (flat ribbon) rather than calligraphy (look at the /S and other curved shapes.

Florian Hardwig

The most shocking thing to me is that there are "only two" of these so far

There’s also Stahl (1939), started by Rudolf Koch and finished by his student Hans Kühne. By the way, from 1931 to 1932, Warren Chappell was a student of Koch in Offenbach, too.

Walter Kemper’s Colonia was released in the same year as Lydian (1938). And there’s – the less similar – Stellar (1929) by Robert H. Middleton.

Nick Shinn

I don't see any plagiarism here, and no need to mention Lydian.

Dan Reynolds

There is also Effenberg Sans, an unpublished student typefaces making its way through the German-language twitter-sphere at the moment.

PabloImpallari

Very similar alphabets are used on many lettering and calligraphy books for beginners, as a sample of the basic pen strokes, and the basic construction of the roman letters.

Here is a scan from Anatomy of Lettering by Russell Laker


Another very similar one can be found on "Lettering Simplified, a manual for Beginners" by Rand Holub.

Another one (a little bit more elaborated, based on Caslon) can be found on "How to Render Roman Letter Forms" by Tommy Thompson.

I'm pretty sure there are many more...

Deleted Account

Okay, so the most shocking thing to me is that there are "only five" of these so far .

Florian Hardwig

More amusing than shocking is the fact that MT sells a face named Lisbon, but doesn’t know who “designed” it: http://www.fonts.com/font/monotype/lisbon

Mark Simonson

It's an old Compugraphic knock-off (as indicated by the "CG" prefix). They carry that, but not Triumvirate?

Eris Alar

Florian - I actually laughed out loud at this :-D