richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) (04/25/88)
Since you pack of louts are being no help whatsoever in this matter
(It's been 8 hours since I asked the question :-) we've done some
foraging around and found a couple of good things.
Who owns the name ?
The conclusion seems to be here, that if you recognize the name, there
is a great chance somebody owns it. I was kinda thrown by compu$serve
which has mac fonts online, some with "famous" names, like cheltenham.
So I figured maybe cheltenham is PD or something.
Wrong.
Seems like anytime anybody went to the lengths of making/selling
a nice font, they trademarked the name. Makes sense. Ahem.
A couple of useful catalogues:
Letraset - $6 at _Walsers_ an art supply store here in L.A. I have
no idea if thet are in other cities, but i suspect so. REAL NICE
catalogue. If it was a computer book, the same thing would be $30.
Nicely done. Gives an example of every character in the set for about
200 fonts. Also lists the trademark name holder.
All the good ones are taken :-)
Chartpak: $4, not as good as Letraset, but still real neet-o.
The best part is, _Walsers_ gives away these nifty posters by Letraset
that show all 197 fonts they sell, each font name in the font itself.
Its proud display on a conspicuous wall here met with some opposition,
well, more that some, but when I explained that all budding font
artists have one of these hanging in their bedrooms, I got off light.
Sort of.
I'm still not convinced of the lagality of these names though, since
_SINOLA_ is listed as being created by Letraset, yet appears in Dan X.
Solo's _Art Nouveu Decorative Alphabets_, with the disclaimer in the
book that anything in the book can be used freely. I give up.
--
"They spent all night staring down at the lights of L.A." heh
richard@gryphon.CTS.COM rutgers!marque!gryphon!richardken@cs.rochester.edu (Ken Yap) (04/25/88)
Why don't you call your fonts Sexton-NN, where NN is some number, like in Univers? 1/2 :-) Aren't you proud to put your name on them? Ken
keithd@cadovax.UUCP (Keith Doyle) (04/27/88)
In article <8975@sol.ARPA> ken@cs.rochester.edu (Ken Yap) writes: >Why don't you call your fonts Sexton-NN, where NN is some number, like >in Univers? 1/2 :-) Aren't you proud to put your name on them? > Ken It would be more like him to name them after fish. Keith Doyle # {ucbvax,decvax}!trwrb!cadovax!keithd Contel Business Systems 213-323-8170
wfp@dasys1.UUCP (William Phillips) (04/27/88)
I may be way off base here, but it seems to me that _many_ classic typeface
names are generic, and in fact predate the introduction of trademarks (at
least in the USA, where trademarks have only existed since 1887).
I also seem to recollect that the reason so many ITC faces bear names that
begin with "ITC" is that the trademark encompasses "ITC <whatever>",
precisely _because_ <whatever> is in fact generic.
Please correct me if I'm wrong; this is mostly off the top of my head.
--
William Phillips {allegra,philabs,cmcl2}!phri\
Big Electric Cat Public Unix {bellcore,cmcl2}!cucard!dasys1!wfp
New York, NY, USA !!! JUST SAY "NO" TO OS/2 !!!