Interesting topic to be researching. An educated guess would be that it came out of military life - and marking crates for soldiers to know what each crate contained.

Maybe I watched too much M*A*S*H

Let us know what you find out.

Meanwhile - and example of Stencil Fonts are fonts where the characters are broken up - so they can be "duplicated" onto walls, boxes, etc. You can go to http://www.myfonts.com/search?search%5Btext%5D=stencil and see commerical stencil fonts or http://www.dafont.com/theme.php?cat=114&page=1&nb_ppp_old=10&text=Type+y... to see shareware/charityware/beerware...
but also take a peek in at House Industires they have at least one very interesting and nice stencil font...(whose name escapes me right now) and several "fun" type stencil fonts.

P.S. If you mean the logo here: http://espn.go.com/ -- I personally, don't consider that a stencil font - it's more of a "techy" font...

but also take a peek in at House Industires they have at least one very interesting and nice stencil font...(whose name escapes me right now)
That would be United
http://www.houseind.com/index.php?page=showfont&id=531

And thanks for the suggestions, I was aware of the military aspect, but I was wondering when they became used in sports.

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Stencils are used to mark objects, the early uses of lettered stencils would probably be on packing cases or crates
http://www.history.uk.com/articles/index.php?archive=60

Tim

@Timd
I am a little stump as to what you are trying to show me in the url you posted

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Try this
http://www.history.uk.com/images/articles/Cutty-Sark-Tea-Chests.jpg

Tim
ps As a favour could you try putting an apostrophe in your sign-off?

Oh an example of a wood crate with stencil markings. :) I understand now

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Stencils were/are also popular with draftsmen, architects and designers. Some information about the Bodoni stencil used by designer Le Corbusier Here and Here.

@Chris Keegan these are the initial links that I had found also. I trying to find when teams such as the Pittsburgh Steelers and Minnesota Vikings and other sport uses were started.

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In Typography Papers 5 You'll find a rather thorough presentation of stencil letters and associated artefacts of the past four centuries by Eric Kindel. He's also written on the subject in Baseline 38. I think he's the go-to guy when it comes to stencil lettering, but I assume James Moseley who's occasionally contributing to Typophile has something interesting to add as well.

Eric Kindel at the University of Reading has done extensive research on what are the predecessors to stencil fonts, if you are interested in going that far back. I'm aware of 2 papers, the first in Typography Papers 5 and the second in Typography Papers 7; as well as at least one in Eye and another in Baseline. His line of work, I am sure, has good bibliography information. You can reach him through the Typography Department's site. http://www.rdg.ac.uk/AcaDepts/lt/home.html

@fredo and Miss Tiffany this is the kind of information that I believe will aid me in my research. What terms did you guys use to find those links?

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I know Eric from when I was at Reading and have followed his research through his writings.

Lucky you to know someone that covers a subject that I am trying to find more information about.

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by the way what is Eye? I assuming this may be some type of book or journal and not referring to the enclosed portion of a glyph.

Edit nevermind found it

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Not luck, just a coincidence. Fredo gave a more detailed list than I did. Reading those papers and articles will help your research.

Eye is another magazine. Although I am not sure if it was Eye or not. However I think they have a page on their site to review content in each issue. http://www.eyemagazine.com/home.php

Eye is a graphic design magazine.

Thomas Maier gave a presentation on stencils at this year’s ATypI; see his synopsis:

[He didn’t] “talk about the great older history of stencils like Eric Kindel and Fred Smeijers did last year, but about the newer history of stencils in the 20th century any of us should approximately have seen and touched by ourselves.”

F

@Capnhud

I have the Typography papers•5 issue and I saw a lecture by Eric Kindel and Fred Smeijers in Lisbon last year.
http://www.atypi.org/30_past_conferences/06_Lisbon/30_program/20_main_pr...

Eye is one of the best graphic design magazines around.
http://www.eyemagazine.com/home.php

"...teams such as the Pittsburgh Steelers"

Besides the military uses mentioned, industrial uses of stencils were quite prominent and most likely predated military usage. I grew up in Pittsburgh in the 40s and 50s. I had summer jobs in mills and factories. Stencils were used to mark material for easy retrieval in a warehouse. They were an efficient way to mark numerous crates over and over on all sides so that they can be read from any vantage point. Since

Pittsburgh was above all an industrial town, It makes sense that the Steelers would follow the lead of the steel industry and give their logo an industrial look.

ChrisL

BTW, This is the Steelers 75th anniversary year so that should give you a point in time to look at. In the 1930s Pittsburgh was known as the smokey city and steel capital of the world. Heavy wooden crates of steel products were common and all stenciled.
The United States Steel Corporation also had a stencil logo and the symbol of the Steelers is taken directly from the old Steel Industry symbol.

ChrisL

And the Minnesota Vikings old logo font? I was thinking it was used because the old scoreboards I thought used stencil numbers.

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@Fredo is it possible to get those papers?

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Try to get in contact with Fred Smeijers: www.ourtype.be
Perhaps you can get more information of his lectures about stencil fonts.

Typography Papers 5
http://www.centralbooks.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Hyphen_Press_1_6...

or
http://www.hyphenpress.co.uk/books/978-0-907259-28-2

Decent academic library should be able to get hold of a copy.

Tim

A couple of years ago I made a font for the norwegian military, based on some beautiful metal stencils.
I don't know how old the stencils are.

Eric Kindel's page, with plenty of useful links and info, on Reading's website:

http://www.rdg.ac.uk/typography/home.html?staff/academic/eric_k.html

Wikipedia entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stencil

It's a little bit funny actually. The wiki doesn't mention the fact that most stencil faces have taken on that look, from laziness. The patterns were originally made to improve hand painting of letters where such expertise was lacking, (Pittsburgh perhaps and the Military most certainly being good examples). After the islands were painted, the "so simple a private can do it" bridges were s'posed to be painted as well to make it look like there was an expert involved. Oh well ;)

Cheers!

were s’posed to be painted as well

Sometimes, there even are additional completive stencils for filling the bridges; Thomas Maier showed some examples of those.

Keep seeing this everywhere.

Thank you Florian - for my morning chuckle.
It just shows you what happens to you if you do not receive a proper education....

Shall we open a new thread entitled, "What is wrong with the education system of the world today"?