Font

[aldarron]

I just noticed something (conciously, anyway) regarding the 1st-3rd print booklets. I don't have copies of these (heh) but I save pics whenever they are posted and have thus acquired a fairly substantial percentage of the text.

Anyway the font is not the same as used in 5th and sixth print ( I dunno about 4th).

The font seems to be Tw Cent (twentieth century or TW Cent MT) which a slight varaition on Futura- the font the AD&D manuals used.

[jmccann]

Try a light Univers:

www.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/univers/

Tw Cen is AFAICT a straight Futura knockoff. Univers is a distinct font.

[jmccann]

Apr 14, 2012 15:51:22 GMT -6 jmccann said:

Try a light Univers:

www.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/univers/

Tw Cen is AFAICT a straight Futura knockoff. Univers is a distinct font.

By knockoff I don't mean to imply that a violation of any license or law has occurred - only that it is a straightforward re-implementation of Futura.

[Aplus]

Yes, and now I am wanting very much to find a 4th or earlier printing as a result :O

[verhaden]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the Ref. Sheets utilize the same typeface as the earlier booklet printings.

[waysoftheearth]

Apr 27, 2012 13:51:28 GMT -6 verhaden said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the Ref. Sheets utilize the same typeface as the earlier booklet printings.

Do you mean the Judges Guild Ready Ref Sheets? If so, I recently acquired a copy, and the font is very different to the 1st print OD&D.

For example the ready ref sheets have a fixed width font, OD&D does not. The ready ref sheets have a "hooked" letter "a", while OD&D has a "round" letter "a". And so on.

I'm not a font expert, but OD&D looks quite similar (but not identical) to futura, while the ready ref sheets look quite similar (but not identical) to tahoma.

[verhaden]

No, not the JG Ready Ref Sheets. This:



And I agree, this is Futura. The text 6th printing of the white box (MM, MT, and UWA) is Univers and the replaced Hobbit-> Halfling text is Helvetica.

What I was saying is that TSR changed the font for the books but not the sheets, so those with later printings can see what font was used in the earlier booklets by checking out their loose leaf reference papers.

[waysoftheearth]

Ah, I see what you meant now.


I can confirm that the 1st and 6th print ref sheets are quite different.


Firstly, the 1st and 6th prints have a different number of leaves.

My copy of the 1st print has three folded letter-leaves which are printed on both sides (making four digest-sized pages per leaf, total 12 pages), two folded letter-sized leaves which are printed on one side only (making 2 digest-sized pages per leaf, total 4 pages), and one folded letter-sized leaf which is printed wholly on one side and only half on the other side (making 3 digest-sized pages).

So, in total the 1st print has six leafs and 19 pages of tables. It does not have a "title page"; this might indicate that I am missing a page but all of the other content that appears on the 6th print's title page leaf is present.

Additionally, the 1st print has one more digest-sized leaf which is printed only on one side entitled "CORRECTION SHEET". I do not have this sheet with any other printed set.

By comparison, the 6th print has exactly five folded letter-sized leaves, all of which are printed on both sides for a total four digest-sized pages per leaf, making 20 digest-sized pages in total. The one "additional" page is the title page. The "correction sheet" was either omitted, or is missing from my sets.



As far as the font is concerned, some parts of the 6th print ref sheets are quite plainly poor quality "copies" of the original, and these do appear to be the same as what appears in the 1st print (with "round" letter as) -- it is a shame these parts were so poorly reproduced

Any text that was subsequently changed for the 6th print ref sheets (which is pretty much all of the text and foot notes following tables, and a few of the tables themselves as well) appears in a slightly larger font (with "hooked" letter as) which has been reproduced far more crisply.

For example, on the page Verhaden posted above you can see that the text at the bottom of the page "Note: All items will be guarded by..." is in the different (newer) font.

Neat

[busman]

Hmm, my research shows that 6th is primarily Univers and Futura, I think I've checked out Helvetica at some point, but I don't recall it specifically; I'll have to look again. More on my font research stuff here: tomeoftreasures.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3541

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Apr 28, 2012 1:47:42 GMT -6 waysoftheearth said:

The "correction sheet" was either omitted, or is missing from my sets.

The correction sheet applies to the 1st - 3rd prints and I am not sure off the top of my head about the 4th print. I do remember that the correction does not apply to the 5th or 6th printing.

[Felipe Budinich]

I only know for sure the exact fonts that were used for the headers, I posted them here a few years ago:

odd74.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=4433&page=1#39640

(i'm gonna attach them to this post too, just in case google decides to delete google sites, like geocities did when I first archived the article)

Attachments:

ddfonts.pdf (374.13 KB)

[gronanofsimmerya]

All I know is, now that I'm 57 years old I can hardly read my AD&D books, even with reading glasses. GAH that's a tough font to read!