That looks very Zapfy, so it must be Palatino Bold ;-)

Hi Bart,

yes, that is correct; Palatino by Hermann Zapf!
This sample is taken from the Palatino Linotype OpenType version that ships with Microsoft Windows. It comes with a substantial character set, including Greek and Cyrillic, small caps, ligatures and various figures & fractions … and this glyph, the Numero sign (№).
Note the differing design decisions, across the styles. Also interesting: the inconsistent treatment of the serifs and the contrast axis (the letter ‘N’ and the masculine ordinal indicator ‘º’ are shown for comparison below):

Now it’s your turn!

Hi Florian,

nice info! I wonder why Hermann decided as such.

New challenge coming up! I'm not that much of a type guru, but I'll see what I can do :-)

Here it is!

Apparently, one of the designers originated in Industrial Design and developed an interest in typography, like me! ;-)

I think it's Bree Regular by Veronika Burian and José Scaglione.

Your thinking is correct ;-)

Take it away!

Thanks!

Here is the next one:

Have fun!

Ooh, I know this one, but I'm not allowed to say anything :'-(

What would Hercule Poirot say if he sees a mysterious clue written with this typeface?

Well… the name of the font is certainly french but the foundry is from the U.S.

MVB Sacre Bleu designed by Mark van Bronkhorst?

Yes Akira! you are correct. The phrase sacre bleu! or sacrebleu!, has been popularized by Agatha Christie's Belgian hero Hercule Poirot.
Joshua Lurie-Terrell from Typographica, chose MVB Sacre Bleu as one of the best typefaces of 2007.

Your turn, Akira!

Thank you, Marcelo. :)

Here is the next one:

Another glyph of the same font:

Another hint:

The designer was involved in a work of a font from House Industries. While the original drawing of the font was from another person, the designer drew the Central European characters and ligatures and defined the spacing and kerning.

Found it! Rumba Small by Laura Meseguer?

Yes! Bart, you’re right.
It’s Rumba Small designed by Laura Meseguer. She designed Rumba, which is her final project for the postgraduate course that she took at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague KABK, in Holland.
And she drew the CE characters and ligatures of Holiday Sans and defined the spacing and kerning of it.

Well done. Your turn now.

Great!

Here it is:

I'll post another glyph on monday.

For now I'll say that the serifs remind me of a type of stone used on small roads in the country of the type foundry where this font is published.

Same font, other glyph:

The designer is Dutch and also attended the post-graduate course Type and Media at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague - and is a member here on Typophile.

Hi Bart,
it’s Parry Normal from OurType, designed by Artur Schmal.

Well done Jan, you are correct!

Your turn :)

New challenge up:

Could this be the work of a fellow typophile?

Oh no. Florian again.
Has just been waiting for me to come up with a challenge ;-)

Yes. Fellow typophile indeed.

Well …
is it Preface – the curvaceous sans by Nick Shinn that does without diagonals?
;-)

... more or less without diagonals – yes.

Absolutely correct, Florian.

The only thing I don’t like about it is the round cap ‘E’.
Looks too much like ‘€’ for my taste.

Thanks!
Here’s the new one:

That might just be the Small Cap letter Q from Aller Display, out of the Aller Sans family designed by Dalton Maag for DMJX, which is free to download at their site.

Wow, Nina, that was a fast one! :D
Absolutely correct. Congratulations, it’s your turn!

Thanks, Florian! :) I was lucky, I just looked at this specimen a few days ago.

So, here's a new one. I hope it's neither too easy nor too obscure :)

Hmm, maybe time for a little hint, I'm beginning to think this may have been a really obscure one. So, the font in question was designed by somebody with whom I share part of my name. And this glyph actually appears in the name of the font.

Ha! Found it.
It’s the tz-ligature from Mein Schatz, designed by Nina Hons.

Wow … that was quick :)
Congrats. That's extremely correct, except that the weight is missing – but I'll assume you'd spot that anyway ;). Your turn!

New challenge up:

Huhu Jan! :D
Could this be the bold italic ‘y’ from Veronika Burian’s beautiful Maiola?
F

Aaaargh ... FLORIAN. Yyessssss. Corrrrrrect.

Well, what can I say? Sorry Jan! ;^)
I have purchased Maiola earlier this year, so the challenge was not that hard.

Here’s the new one:

You might already have guessed it:
This glpyh is not a trebuchet on wheels, but rather a per mille sign (‰).

No guesses? This is from a 4-styles type family with a wide language support, including Greek and Cyrillic script.

There’s a certain reason why this per mille sign looks different from others …

Yeah, it looks pretty funny. :) Is it from a monospaced font?

Yes, Nina, that’s correct!
Here’s another glyph from this font. Same style, smaller scale:

Is this a Luc de Groot font?

Yes! Now let’s swap quizes! :D

Ha! It's the per mille sign from Consolas Regular, designed by Luc(as) de Groot for Microsoft. Am I late?

EDIT: Italic of course, not Regular. Ouch.

Yes, Nina, 1000‰ correct! Sorry Craig, you’re too late …
It is Consolas, ‘the de facto successor of the ubiquitous Courier’. The second glyph is a long s (ſ), as you might have guessed. I don’t know if there’s a frequent need for that character in programming, but ‘all six Western typefaces in the [ClearType] collection were to be developed […] with the same robust glyph set for all’ — LucasFonts.

Did you know that Consolas comes with a number of alternates for some lowercase characters? There are no less than four variations on the ‘r’ – per style, that is. Switching those alternative forms on can change the look of the typeface quite dramatically – which reminded me of Hypatia Sans, and Nick Shinn’s thoughts about its manifold faces. Alas, unlike Hypatia Sans, Consolas’ alternates aren’t organized via stylistic subsets, thus toggling them is more difficult.

Now it’s your turn, Nina!

Yes, Nina, 1000‰ correct!
Haha. Cool!

Did you know that Consolas comes with a number of alternates for some lowercase characters?
Wow. I didn't know that, although I guess something like that is bound to happen when Luc(as) 'Gazillions Of Weights' de Groot is limited to four styles only. ;-) That alternate 'r' in your lower line is pretty, uh, expressive for Consolas!

Looking for a pretty glyph now … will post the new sample shortly.

Here's a new one for your collective amusement (:

Kickass font. Yeah, I love it. New challenge up soon.

Here we go:

The designer describes the origin of his typefaces as “combining traditional drawing values with the computer’s mastery of geometric form.”

Harbour Medium, from Alias Collection.
http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/fw-alias/harbour/

Correct Riccardo. Your turn.

I have to admit I'm a better googler than I am at identifying typefaces...
Ah, the shame!
I'll post something up as soon as possible.

Here it is!

U+2113, right?

Well, yes, it is a "script small l"...

I thought it was Moped Sans, but no.

Nothing that fancy, alas...

Ok, then.
It is a ℓ.
It was designed in 1990, but based on a much older specimen.
It's name is somewhat related to London.

Oh, well, there's always someone that kill a thread off. It seems that today it's my turn… ;-)

Here's a little bump:

Is it Poplar—glyph 157? The ℓ would have been glyph 250.

Aaaaand we have a winner! :-)

Poplar was designed by Barbara Lind in 1990 for the Adobe Wood Type series from photographs taken by Rob Roy Kelly of the one surviving copy of an 1830 William Leavenworth type specimen book. Leavenworth possessed unusual artistic abilities, and his treatment of the letterform counters as narrow slits made it the only wood type of its kind displayed during the nineteenth century.

Your turn, JL.

Thank you, Riccardo. Here we go.

I typically give away too much in the hints. I'll try to mend my ways by saying simply that this is not a 2.

It's a Q, I suppose.

A lowercase g.

Sorry! A typo. It's a lowercase q.

This is probably where I get carried away and hint too broadly.
If the glyph in question were a lowercase g, it would look like this:

The type designer in question has a background in sign making and tests his typefaces on a plotter to avoid problems at the vinyl cutting stage.

The studio is in Fort Worth, Texas.

Ah, it's Harliquin (sic). (Which I only got by googling...)

Yes, Craig. It is Harliquin by Steve Contreras at Signfonts (Art & Sign Studio). I'm with you on the "sic" — I'd rather see this script named Harlequin. Anyway, your turn…

Here goes:

Cap X, Englische Schreibschrift from Berthold?

Exactly right, barthak!

Here's a new one, if anyone is still watching this...

The roughness is because I do not own the face ( it's not the cheapest of fonts ) and the website doesn't provide a bigger sample.

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