Topic of the Month



Topic of the month: The Many Faces of Arnold - Lookalike Fonts
by Kevin Andrew Murphy

Most of todays fonts started as yesteryear's typefaces, and even the new and original typefaces often have lookalikes. Which means that while you may need a particular typeface for a project, there are likely several fonts that will do the job. Lookalikes fall into several categories: recuts, ripoffs (both recuts and scanjobs), renames (legitimate and illegitimate), and reinterpretations. The first three are pretty much identical to each other for purposes of typeface matching; the last is not quite the same, but is often close enough for most purposes, and sometimes superior.
For example, one of the classic typefaces from the beginning of the history of printing is Nicolas Jenson's Venetian type. Of course, his original lead type is pretty worn, likely in a museum somewhere, and not suitable for use with a computer. However, modern computer users can choose between Adobe Jenson, Centaur (included with many Microsoft products), and Bitstream's Venetian 301 BT. All of these are recuts of Jenson's original, and while there are subtle differences between the three, they're virtually indistinguishable.

Then there are original licensed typefaces like the popular brush script Choc, by Fonderie Olive and/or Letraset (both of which have identical fonts called Choc). Of course, Choc has several ripoffs, from Chalk (Corel) to Staccato 555 (Bitstream) to PT Saigon (Ward Technologies) and doubtless several more from various other foundries, both large and small. The most common look-alike font is the Art Nouveau display face created by Arnold Boecklin, which was popular at both the turn-of-the-century (19th-20th) and during the 1960s hippie days. On my system, I currently have Arnold Boecklin (Adobe), Arnold Boecklin Extra Bold (Publishers Paradise BBS), Arnold BoeD (URW), Bockloo (Atech Software), Bocklin (no copyright notice), Medusa (LorVad shareware), PT Robinhood (Ward Technologies), and Art Deco SSi (Southern Software). The quality and basic point size vary between these fonts, but they are all the same typeface.
Then there are renames, of which there are legitimate and illegitimate versions. Legitimate renames include such things as the various ITC (International Type Corporation) versions of fonts created by individual designers, most of which are identical to the originals, though some of which are substantially different. The best example is Frantisek Storm's Biblon, available from Stormtype, which became much more simplified in its ITC version (and much less interesting).

Renames also occur when a company renames one of its existing fonts to fit the theme of some package. The best example is the various "Disney Print Shop" CDs which include one or two high quality fonts, which are simply high-priced licensed fonts with the names changed by the owners. For example, the Little Mermaid Print Shop has two ITC fonts, "Flounder" and "Sebastian," named after the cartoon fish and crab. These fonts, however, are identical to ITC Clover and Letraset LaBamba. "Mushu" on the Mulan Printshop is really ITC Arnova and so forth.

Then there are illegitimate versions of fonts, the most common of which is the incredibly popular "free" web font "Burton's Nightmare," a Victorian script used in the Tim Burton Film, "The Nightmare Before Christmas." However, if compared side-by-side with the David Nalle Scriptorium font "Goodfellow," you'll see that Burton's Nightmare is simply Goodfellow with the name changed, even including the same logo character in the place of the "~" A scanjob version of this same font is Swifte's "Wizard," which is slightly larger and less clear, and suspiciously missing the tilde character, but not quite so obvious a lift as Burton's Nightmare.

Then there are reinterpretations. The original font used for the chapter headers in the American editions of the Harry Potter books is Marcus Burlile's "Ablefont."

There are straight scan-jobs of this, such as Daniel Will-Harris's "Potter Fuse Letter" to amusing (and much cleaner) reinterpretations such as "Lumos" which has stars for the dots in the "i" and various other changes which keep it from being a straight lift from Ablefont. If you need a font, generally speaking, you can find a lookalike. Most common typefaces have several recuts from various foundries, often with similar names, and there are useful tables scattered about the web listing the Bitstream and WSI equivalents for various popular fonts.