Find a font by form 06 Apr 2006
17 comments Latest by thomas
FontShop’s TypeNavigator is a handy tool to find the font you want by memory. According to FontShop, all you need is the image in your head. You can visually specify shape, angle, contrast, axis, contour, and more to help you locate the font you’re thinking of. It’s a pretty interesting way to find the right type when you don’t know what it is you’re exactly looking for.
17 comments so far (Jump to latest)
Mark 06 Apr 06
Shouldn’t that be “Find a font by form”?
James Mathias 06 Apr 06
Too bad it’s limited to FontShop’s paid font stock.
Which means it’s usefullness as a tool is limited.
Good idea, otherwise.
nate 06 Apr 06
Mark: technically yes, but “Font a font” just sounds so right!
Bruno Figueiredo 06 Apr 06
You can do that same thing on identifont.com for ages. I use it all the time.
Noah 06 Apr 06
Holkie crap that’s amazing!
I hope they sell TONS of em with that!
How very cool.
AW 06 Apr 06
Awesome resource guys!
You know the only font I can’t find is the one you guys blogged about. The german font that was used for license plates and was developed with the help of psychologist to ensure each letter wasn’t mistaken for another. B & 8 looked oh so different. What was that font?
Tom Greenhaw 06 Apr 06
I just checked out TypeNavigator and I agree it’s cool. This might be nice if you want to select (and buy) a font for a new project.
I have been using Identifont for years too and it is a much more effective tool for guessing the name of a font when you only have a sample. Most of the time one can match a font if there are enough sample letters to go on.
Tom Greenhaw 06 Apr 06
It aint pretty but the OCR A font is designed to easily differentiate all letters including B & 8.
elv 06 Apr 06
“What the font” also does a good job at identifing font, from an image :
What The Font
Hunox 07 Apr 06
Agree with Bruno. identifont.com had this for many years. They just bit the idea from them and repackaged it with more PR hype :)
edvard 08 Apr 06
well, http://typenav.fontshop.com/ returns “The TypeNavigator services are not available in Germany.” is that a joke? :S
Stephen 11 Apr 06
Hunox/Bruno - Identifont and TypeNav use two very different methods for finding fonts. Identifont uses a process of elimination based on individual glyph shapes, while TypeNav uses the overall structure of each typeface as a guide. Each system has its place. Identifont excels at finding a specific typefaces, but TypeNav is really the only app that will find matches based on general concepts such as width, weight, contour, and contrast. Suppose, for instance, you want to find very heavy, wide serif with high contrast. TypeNav is a good starting point.
edvard - Sadly it is no joke. FontShop Germany is a licensor of the FS brand, but chose not to participate in TypeNavigator.
edvard 11 Apr 06
thanks Stephen!
thomas 09 Jul 06
Anyone knows what is the font used for the world cup?