Eyeball font identification party trick strategies

John Butler

When I want to recognize a text font without looking it up, one of the first things I do is scan through copy for instances of the italic, because italics are easier to distinguish among. Am I the only one who does this? I always wonder how other folks do it. My identification skill peaked in the mid-2000s, before the number of good new designs exploded, and I don’t bother memorizing sans or script designs. These days WhatTheFont and Identifont have made me lazy.

Beyond that I have a few characters I look for in the Roman that often have distinct features, W U g etc, which I imagine most fontspotters do as well.

Any other tricks? Anything less than obvious?

Mark Simonson

For me, font ID has always been kind of a gestalt thing, like recognizing someone's face. Even so, I do rely on certain unique attributes for some typefaces, like that dreadful R in Arial. These tend to arise from trying to distinguish between similar designs.

James Puckett

I can’t identify most fonts. But, like Mark, I can always spot the dreadful R in Arial. And the C. And the G. And the S. And a and s. Now I need to take a Xanax.

Nick Shinn

You may recognize it, but can you put a name to it?

The initial-letter prompting strategy for remembering names:
Go through the alphabet letter by letter, imagining that the particular letter you’re at starts the name you’re searching for.
(Works for people whose names you’ve forgotten, too.)

However, this assumes that at some time you’ve seen a name attached to the image.
(Speaking of prompts, this is how generative AI works.)

Ray Larabie

It used to be so easy. You could memorize the Letraset and Mecanorma catalogs, and easily identify almost any font you encountered.

Stephen Coles

I think most of my IDs are based on a memory of an established set of typefaces (maybe 500?). When I see something I can’t immediately identify, I fall back on the memory (or hunch) of how the typeface may be connected to something from the established set (e.g., designer, foundry, historical period, aesthetic genre), and then I check references (e,g, Fonts In Use, Identifont, FontBook, PLINC, McGrew, Seemann, etc.) that document those connections.

PabloImpallari

When I was a little kid and my dad takes me to school in his car, I was glued to the window looking at the stores signs with the names on it, trying to learn how to read.

Later on, I started to notice the styles of the letters of each sign, the colors, the size or shape of letters, and started developing some kind of talent to relate the signs that where similar to other signs in the neighborhood by their lettering style.

The obsession evolved over time and I developed a tremendous visual memory... Now when I visit new cities around the world and I get lost, I don't need to use google maps: I can simply find a familiar shop sign on the street and follow the trail all the way back to the hotel room. I can follow the trail of typefaces used in signs like the Hansel and Gretel brothers will follow the track of stones to get out of the forest. I can even remember the sequence of all the signs I have seen over 2 or 3 days, in perfect order... for example... if I walk 2 blocks and the sign I was looking for is not there, and I start to see new signs instead..  I immediately realize that I passed by and that I have to go back a block or two to turn in some direction.. To know which direction is the correct one, I only have to look for the signs that I already know and I turn to that side.. To the side that I see new posters I know is not. 

I never get lost in any city... not even in rome. In fact rome was a paradise to me.. so much ancient lettering!!!! But I do get very disoriented if I'm in the countryside or in the mountains, where there are no signs of any business.

I hated Dubai... since its a quite new city.. everything is new and shine. There is NOT A FUCKING SINGLE SIGN DONE BY A SIGN PAINTER IN THE ENTIRE CITY. Fuck Dubai! Hell yeah!!!

A few years ago I was able to identify from memory more than 16.000 typefaces, not only their names, but also foundry, their designer, the specimen book the font was first published... everything.. to the smallest of the details.

For example:

https://twitter.com/impallaritype/status/484050368159318018

Survey / Surveyor:

https://twitter.com/impallaritype/status/858153318488715264

Now Its not possible any more.. with tons of fonts released every day, some of them so ugly that huts me so much (Creative market im talking to you!) to the point that I don't want to keep track of new released any more. Well, maybe thats a good things since it was sort of the cure for my obsession, If I wanna look at it that way... but don't.. I don't really want to stop.. I'm afraid of missing that evasive single hidden gem among all the crap. I still have the sickness 

I've had my 5 seconds of glory!

1) When I discovered that Tommy Thompson famous book about how to draw scripts was an exact copy (down to the points and commas.. I could not believe it!) from the 1913 Art of Writting by John Jenkins.

2) When Hoefler kissed me!
On day he posted this image on his twitter, with a message saying "Great Advice!" or something like that. "
I immediately replied: "1957 - The art of Hand Writting, Its Mastery and Practice. By Helm Wotzkow" And a link to the full book in the Internet Archive.

He replied back "Thanks Pablo. you always do the best finds!" or something like that.
I wanted to link from here to the twitter thread but looks like its so old its not available any more (Thanks Elon!). Of course.... it was not a kiss, but it felt like it was.


 
On those rare occasions where I cannot identify a particular font, the FindMyfont app got me covered! It a fantastic app. By far the very best and specifically dedicated to font identification. I totally recommend it if you too are infected by the font identification sickness.

It also become part of my workflow... when I was designing fonts in a particular overpopulated genre, I used it to Identify my very own font.. of course it wont find it since it was unpublished, but the app also provided a long list of fonts similar to mine.. so I used to change things in my own font, so that enabled me to fine-tune my own design to stay away from all the similar ones and making my fonts more unique. How cool is that? 

It also served me well as a research tool in my workflow... For example: When I was interest in a particular design concept or in a particular font.. or whatever... I used it to research and collect other fonts to include in my mood-board.

It can identify fonts up to the most minimal detail.. for example: It will identify the old version of Universe condensed (lovely squared /o shape) and the new version ( fucking ugly rounded /o for easy family interpolation) as two different fonts... and all the difference  was that the version has 1 node deleted! hahaha... So, as you can image... it's a very powerful app.

PabloImpallari

John Butler said:

Beyond that I have a few characters I look for in the Roman that often have distinct features, W U g etc, which I imagine most fontspotters do as well.
Any other tricks? Anything less than obvious?

I can tell you this:
The only letter you need to identify an typeface is the uppercase /R
The /R its the ADN of the full alphabet  There is SO MUCH information there!!

Why the /R, you may ask?
Because its the only letters that contains a straight line, a curve, and a diagonal.
The R is the full combo! R is for Real, Its the real deal!

Can you see it know? Its all there!

John Butler

Thanks, Pablo, for the insight! I’ll try memorizing a few more cap Rs. I love that Wotzkow book. I bought a copy back in the 90s and especially liked its blackletter stroke endings detail.