[comp.fonts] What is that font/who owns tha name

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!richard

ken@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
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