Font Forum

Supplementary note of 28 May 2011

The content of Google Streetview changes from time to time. Sometimes that is because new views have been gathered and the old ones ore no longer available. Accordingly, some of the links may go to slightly different views, yet looking around often produces a picture showing the item to which I have referred.

Checking today I notice that the view of the inscription on the base of the statue of Dante is no longer available.

Also, the displays in the shop window of the la Rinascente department store have changed.

End of supplementary note of 28 May 2011

Supplementary note of 21 June 2011

I have today found that the view of the inscription on the base of the statue of Dante is available with a different link. The new link is included in a supplementary note within the original post.

End of supplementary note of 21 June 2011

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Google Maps now has the Streetview facility for the Italian city of Firenze (the city being known in English as Florence).

I have been having a look and noticed interesting fonts being used in shop signs.

For example the following.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=43.7 ... 1114889093

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&layer=c ... 34332&z=15

Readers who find other interesting examples can generate the text for a link by clicking on the Link label that is at the very right just above the Streetview image display.

William Overington

7 November 2008

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Supplementary note of 22 February 2011

There is a post by Dick Pape in the Style Art Font thread in the Gallery forum about identifying the font used in the sign for the ice cream shop as Almonte Snow.

viewtopic.php?p=10222#p10222

Thank you Dick.

If making a snow themed publication, some readers might like my Snow font.

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2515

William Overington

22 February 2011

For Example: Umberto

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&layer=c ... 5&t=h&z=15

Belwe Light BT by Bitstream Inc.

(Across the street from Almonte Snow.)

Dick Pape wrote:Belwe Light BT by Bitstream Inc.

Thanks Dick.

I found the following web page.

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/bitstream/belwe/light/

A nice font.

William

I was using Google Streetview to look at a view in Florence when I noticed a street sign and I zoomed in on it.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=43.7 ... 5689536124

This is just south of the river, near the Ponte Vecchio (the old bridge).

I noticed that a symbol for a museum seemed to be on the sign several times, together with some other symbols.

The Webdings font has a similar, though different, symbol from that used on the sign as a symbol for a museum, encoded as a G character.

I thought of the idea of trying to make a font of those symbols using artwork straight from street signs.

Yet this picture of the sign does not seem to be too clear. I am not sure quite why that is the case.

So I decided to try to find another sign with the logo, which I did, directly on the other side of the river over the Ponte Vecchio.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&layer=c ... 68665&z=14

Incidentally using Streetview at present one cannot move directly from one side of the river to the other using the Ponte Vecchio, one needs to close the picture, reclick on the map and open another picture.

An interesting thing is that the lowest panel of the sign directs one to the "museo di storia della scienza".

So I entered "museo di storia della scienza" in the search box on that page and found that marker A was for the museum, a short way along the riverbank.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=43.7 ... 4397433405

There was also a link to a webspace, which, upon selecting another link for English, lead to the following web page.

http://www.imss.fi.it/index.html

Zooming in to the special-event banner on the wall of the museum shows that it is about an exhibition named Galileo’s Telescope with that title set in capitals and small capitals with a proper apostrophe.

The http://www.imss.fi.it/index.html web page has a link to a web page about that exhibition.

Another picture from Florence, back at the location of the first link from this post, on the other side of the river, though one needs to turn clockwise by about 120 degrees, has a web address displayed on a sign at a construction site (one needs to use the zoom).

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&layer=c ... 34332&z=15

William Overington

10 November 2008

I found the following use of graphics and fonts in the windows of a Florence department store.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=43.7 ... 4805349122

I can observe the words AUTUMN and la Rinascente, however I cannot decide what are the two words in the orange script.

The one is, possibly, jolie yet the other one possibly begins with gla and ends with sse, there being some letters in the middle as well. I am undecided whether the orange script is a font or is a specially drawn logo graphic.

William Overington

10 November 2008

The following is a link to an image of a notice next to the river, upstream from the centre of the city.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=43.7 ... 8115977458

The words on the signs are translated as follows, using the Translation Plus program.

Restaurant the swan

Pizzeria the garden of the swan

I wonder if the logos are from a well-known font or whether they are in-house at the signmaker's factory.

William Overington

14 November 2008

Nothing will be left to the local option -- the government always wants to stifle individual creativity so everything must be the same. Likewise, the sign painters have learned to not be responsible for inappropriate designs so will ask for "guidance"...

There are standard symbol fonts available for every aspect of our lives so there are commissions, consultants and trade organizations who will be more than glad to make the decisions.

Everybody's happy.

Obviously many Dining designs exist:

http://rapidshare.com/files/163764741/Eating_Signs.ttf

Thanks Dick.

Here is a link to an image with four fonts used within it.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=43.7 ... 5894222235

Here is a link to an image from nearby to the previous one, with just one font used within it.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=43.7 ... 7650286092

William Overington

15 November 2008

I have been trying to proof those two links directly from the post at various times since I posted them but have not got them to work yet, though one did work to some extent though not properly.

It might be that the internet is slow at present, but I am wondering if anyone has got them to produce displays of using fonts.

William

The above links will proof at times, yet rarely I have found.

They were each zoomed in a lot and maybe that caused the problem.

So here are non-zoomed in versions and readers who so choose can zoom in themselves.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=43.7 ... 5665953725

Zoom in on the sign with four fonts which includes the following.

Caffetteria

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=43.7 ... 0639533732

Zoom in on the following.

Florence’s Secret

This seems to be more effective.

William Overington

17 November 2008

Besides the fonts what's interesting to me is that every face in the crowds has been individually blurred... hope they do it mechanically...

Dick Pape wrote:Besides the fonts what's interesting to me is that every face in the crowds has been individually blurred... hope they do it mechanically...

Well, the face on a poster in the following link looks blurred.

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&layer=c ... 17166&z=16

Yet the face on a copy of the same poster just down the road does not look blurred!

http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&layer=c ... 17166&z=16

William Overington

17 November 2008

Off-topic note, yet related to this thread - hopefully some readers will find this post of interest.

Yesterday evening I saw a television programme on the United Kingdom television channel BBC4. Some BBC programmes are later broadcast on television channels around the world.

Travels with Vasari

Part one of two. Historian Andrew Graham-Dixon explores the art of Italy, asking why the country has created some of the best-loved works of art the world has ever seen. He begins his journey in the town of Arezzo, Tuscany, the birthplace of the world's first art critic Giorgio Vasari.

It was a repeat. On BBC4 in the United Kingdom, Part 2 is due for broadcast on Wednesday 3 December 2008 at 9:00 pm with a repeat of Part 2 on Sunday 7 December 2008 at 7:00 pm.

In Google Streetview the outside of the enclosed Vasari Corridor is displayed as it passes high in the air over the Ponte Vecchio. The outside of parts of the Vasari Corridor is also displayed clearly in Google Streetview on each side of the River Arno.

Towards the end of the television programme, we, as viewers, are taken inside part of the enclosed Vasari Corridor. This is furnished like a long thin Art Gallery with pictures of self-portraits by artists over the centuries. Amongst his skills, Vasari was an architect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasari_Corridor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasari

This post is not about fonts, yet hopefully adds to the background of this thread.

William Overington

1 December 2008

William wrote:

Travels with Vasari

Part one of two. Historian Andrew Graham-Dixon explores the art of Italy, asking why the country has created some of the best-loved works of art the world has ever seen. He begins his journey in the town of Arezzo, Tuscany, the birthplace of the world's first art critic Giorgio Vasari.

Towards the end of the television programme, we, as viewers, are taken inside part of the enclosed Vasari Corridor. This is furnished like a long thin Art Gallery with pictures of self-portraits by artists over the centuries. Amongst his skills, Vasari was an architect.

Some readers might like to know that the programme is due to be broadcast again at 7 pm this evening, Saturday 27 December 2008, on the BBC4 television channel in the United Kingdom.

Part 2 is due for broadcast tomorrow at 7 pm on BBC4.

Each programme is for one hour.

William Overington

27 December 2008

Sorry, we don't get BBC4 in Dallas Texas (or BBC3, or BBC2 or BBC1 for that matter).