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Finding obscure fonts
September 21, 2007

It is our lot in life to identify hundreds of type fonts for ourselves and our customers. Back when there were fewer fonts and smaller type libraries, it was possible for a single human to identify a tremendous number of fonts on sight. I remember being able to name any font in my company’s library within a few seconds. I was brilliant! But I also had a finite selection, and it only occasionally changed. As I have aged, and the world has changed, I no longer have that skill.

In today’s world of zillions of fonts, it’s impossible to identify many fonts correctly. I still consider myself an expert, but I stumble on many of the fonts presented to me for identification.

There is a delightful resource available online that solves this problem for many unidentified fonts. Called What The Font, it’s a service of MyFonts.com, a seller of type fonts from many sources. Using What the Font can save a lot of work thumbing through the type books or perusing online font directories. I have been aware of What the Font for quite a while, and I tested it more than a year ago without success. But, the site works better now, so well in fact that it’s dazzling.

I gave it a shake-down yesterday, looking for an obscure font in a logo. That search yielded the correct font on the first try. To push the system a little harder, I asked it to identify the proprietary font of the National Park Service, and that also worked. Then I gave it a common sans-serif font with many similar font cousins in existence – News Gothic. These sans serif fonts are among the most difficult to identify. What the Font got it right on the first try, again. I’m really impressed.

How it works
You scan and upload an image to the web site. The web site responds by parsing the scan into letters that it can identify. You then help it along by identifying what the letters should be, and then you click on a button and it comes back with suggested identities for the font. It takes a fraction of a second to respond.


To test it to the extreme, I uploaded the image of a font I have drawn from wood type in the Shakespeare Press Museum at Cal Poly where I teach Graphic Communication (shown above). I have never seen this particular font in digital form, and I hoped that What the Font could not figure out its identity. If it did, that would mean that the antique font in question already exists – a catastrophe for me. I uploaded the scan of the font, and identified the various letters. What the Font returned a few vaguely similar fonts, but was unable to identify my font. A great relief.

If you’re puzzled by a font, give it a try. It’s nearly unbelievable.

Posted by Brian Lawler on September 21, 2007 | Comments (0)