Typographic Detective Work

Have you ever been asked to reproduce something either on paper or on a web site that has included a Font you don’t have on your machine, or don’t recognise?

I did the other day, and it nearly had me beat – I was ready to tell my client that I had re-done his Logo as I couldn’t find the Font on my old Windows machine… until I heard about the online service ‘What the Font’ over at MyFonts and it’s companion iPhone App.

I used the Online service for this particular find, and found it very easy to use and it found the font for me first go – it actually suggested about 10 fonts that could have been the one I was looking for, but it found the one I wanted, so I didn’t mind!

Then I noticed that they have an iPhone App too! so I had to download it to try it out, didn’t I  :0)

The App is Free, and although not quite as accurate as the web based version (in my limited tests – YMMV) was still a good way to determine a font from, say, a magazine title or poster.

It does struggle with small fonts though, and ones where there are joined up characters or the characters are very close to each other, but hey, it’s a free App, so I’m not holding that against it.

I realise this is a bit of a specific kind of application, and not much use if you don’t work with Fonts on a regular basis, but SwitchMac.com IS the chronical of my day-to-day experiences with the switch to Mac, and I DO use fonts on a daily basis! :0)

Hopefully it’ll be useful to anyone needing to find out what that cool font is on a sign or shop front – presuming your a Typeface Geek like me, of course!

Random Font-y Fact: The font for the lettering on the Space Shuttle is Helvetica ! 

Have an App that’s proved indispensable to you when you switched? Why not share it with us all on SwitchMac.com – just drop me a line : rob@SwitchMac.com and I’ll post it up on the site.

Or maybe you’re just on the edge of switching, and want to ask a couple of questions? Don’t be shy – send them in, either via email or a recorded sound snippet – I can deal with both on the site – and we’ll get the SwitchMac.com readers in on the act (presuming I haven’t answered the same questions myself as I’ve made the switch, obviously!

If you’ve just switched – welcome! and if you’re still thinking about it, go for it – once you go Mac, you Never go back  :0)

Wiz