Polonaise

Hey Stephen

Is it Polonaise or is it Chopin?

Been a long time but I will search out Chopin to see.

Michael

Chopin is a knockoff of Polonaise. But the capital S is different from both. Maybe it was borrowed from another font?

I knew it. That "S" is from Balmoral SH.

Katelynn

Give me some backup history. Chopin came out in the 70's. I have never heard of Polonaise until today... it too is from the 70's. After a quick historical seach it seems that it is in fact the same font with a name change. No knockoffs were intimated in the foundry's site.

Can you give me some sites with some real history to them?

Michael

Marginal similarities to Balmoral. Looks like it is customized, i.e. they have pulled the ball serif off of the S and shortened the flourish. The spikes on the lower case is a dead give away for Chopin/Polonaise.

Michael

Chopin may be an alternate name for Polonaise which was designed by Phil Martin for photocompositing in the ’70s as well.

FWIW, Chopin is the name for this in the Solotype Catalog. Since I know some names were changed, Stephen's history is probably right. BTW, there are alternate initials shown in the Solotype Catalog (p.97), but this S is not one of them. I think it is the S from Letraset Balmoral, as Katelyn said.

- Mike Yanega

Thanks Stephen and Mike. I remember setting Chopin on the Phototypositor and thinking "this face is cool." Now I have to live with a semi-tarnished memory.

Michael

Pardon me, Michael, I did not mean to offend you. I have seen it several places, (including several threads on typophile) that Chopin was a copy of Polonaise. If I am misinformed, I apologize.

You didn't offend me!!!! I am as stunned as I can be... knew the font for decades by the wrong name. It was my mistake. So I apologize to you. My training was in a type house that prided itself in using only legit sources. I have heard horror stories over the years as a result of my associations with type designers, now I am living my own nightmares with my own fonts.

Please don't feel that you did anything wrong.

Michael

No offense taken at all Katelyn. I'm not sure what the history of Chopin/Polonaise is, so I defer to Stephen's knowledge. Sometimes, both names might be valid, because they are two different versions of a typeface based on the same model (if it was in metal first, say). There are many examples of revivals today that are like that. Mark Simonson in this thread thought it was possible that Chopin was the original name and that Phil Martin renamed his version of it, so who really knows?

- Mike Yanega

Boy do I feel stupid. Been sitting on this node for what, 12 hours? It just dawned on me the connection between Chopin and Polnaise. I am going to get a brain scan right now! Hope they find anything between my ears! I love classical music and totally missed the connection. I am a dummass.

Michael

Well, it certainly is a relief to know that. I know I am new around here, and the last thing I would want to do is commit some major faux pas. My earliest training was helping my mother set the punches for cutting stencil for headstones. Unfortunately, there was a large gap between that and when I took a job as a typesetter in college, which renewed my obsession.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I really appreciate all of the history and knowledge around here. I'm glad to be corrected.

Katelynn

Here is a prime example

I originally called this Jennifer after my first daughter. It ended up being called Pouty (Fontbureau 1999), my daughter's choice! Conflict with Jennifer Lopez. Long story. Anyway I was on www.fonts101.com and lo, and behold, there is Bolero... my font Pouty. And there had been 90 some free downloads. Worse yet, Alexandra whatever from Russia had copyrighted Pouty as Bolero and was giving it away. It's now up to 170 downloads and the people on the site are calling me an asshole because I protested. Go figure. Wanna guess what my royalty losses are?

So I am a bit sensitive to the name changes etc.

P.s. These are the original drawings with notes.

Michael

So when I am dead and buried you youngsters can say... Yep that's Jennifer/Pouty/Bolero. Pick a card. Any card! By the way, she has been contacted and refuses to take Bolero down and insists it is hers.

Michael

Michael, I would persist with the operators of the site. The designer and other freeloaders who visit there may not respond well, but I think this site is trying to steer clear of this kind of piracy/ripoff. Look on their disclaimer page and contact them.

double post

That is reprehensible, and I don't doubt that things like this are prevalent. It is no different than copying any other copyrighted material, which I am unfortunately also familiar with. For example, my partner is a photographer, and shot a gig for a magazine at a restaurant. Said magazine signed a contract for these images for editorial use. The next month, the restaurant "borrowed" one of the images from the magazine for an ad it was running in that magazine. And when contacted, couldnt understand the problem!

It's absolutely maddening. Because although there is technically recourse, for someone on their own, it's next to impossible. Unless the guilty parties are suddenly overcome with a conscience, of course.

So, what im trying to say is: That is terrible, and I understand!

And, I can definitely understand your sensitivity on the subject.

Hey Carl

I contacted Ragdesh, the moderator. No luck. Frank, the lawyer for just about everybody did his thing too. It was much broader than Bolero. Adobe, Fontbureau, Linotype etc. were all involved. What does Ragdesh care... he is in Pakistan. Russia has no copyright laws as far as I can discern. So Whatcha gonna do? Can you believe they even had a ZEPFINO? He is not someone I would want to piss off.

Yes Katelynn, it is maddening. And these people have no conscience. One person even asked "How do we even know you are the actual designer of this font?" How do you fight that kind of stipidity?

And today I went on the site and they are trying to get a free copy of P22 Sweepy. I cannot win.

Michael

"How do we even know you are the actual designer of this font"

That's revealing in itself. Oh well, some people are parasites and scavengers. These probably are the people who never would pay for fonts anyway. They are too deep in their rationalizations.

You are right Carl. But when you consider that I sold 10 on Fontbureau and 170 were given away I tend to get bitchy.

I've got 2 girls in college, gradute and under graduate, and I could use the money.

OK i am whining. Sorry

Michael

It's not just people overseas either. There was a firm i used to work for who not only misused stock images, but used pirated software and pirated fonts.

Amazingly, thats how a lot of places operate.

Put the bird back up Katelynn. It is soothing. I have a Columbine bloom I am going to put up once I figure out how to do that.

It is hard for freelancers to keep up with the upgrades much less buying new programs outright. I am floating between OS9 and 10. Just bit the bullet and spent $2000. That hurts, and then acquaintances ask me for one of my fonts and I go ballistic.

Get this. I was riding down the highway a bit back. I noticed this logo on the side of a semi. I know those letters. So I got this guy to pull over. Queried him and called the company. They referred me to the ad agency. I talked to the creative director and he admitted he had culled the initials from another (very idiosyncratic and identifiable) logo I had done. Called my lawyer etc. and a check ensued. Mud on his face. I was outraged.

Michael

Well I put up my favorite flower. Whatcha think?

I didnt realize you thought so highly of the bird. There, it's back. I like your flower. I think the addition of the avatar is always good. Lets people think all sorts of strange things about the meaning of the image you choose ;)

I cant believe you pulled over the truck, although I might have done the same. It is so hard to make a living, it's bad enough without being ripped off.

The driver was totally mystified!

Michael

lol I can imagine! Good thing he didnt take you for a carjacker!

I actually took a part time job on Saturdays to consult for a local greenhouse. They turned perennials over to me and it became about 25 hours a week. That I can do in the early a.m. so it does not get in the way of my letters. I love it. I consult for people with their landscaping problems for free. It is actually liberating and after 29 years of working alone in my studio it is good to talk to people, other than children and art directors (who are in fact bitchy little children with huge egos). Woops, that slipped. Sorry.

Michael

It’s not just people overseas either. There was a firm i used to work for who not only misused stock images, but used pirated software and pirated fonts.

Amazingly, thats how a lot of places operate.

My girlfriend works for a local publishing firm and I was speaking to one of their production designers the other day and she revealed that they have NEVER bought a font!

I felt sick.

I am no saint and have pirated plenty of software and fonts in my time...AS A STUDENT! But can you imagine running a business like that?!

Michael, the exact same thing happened to me on Fonts101. I contacted the administrators and they removed the thread within 3 days.

See: http://typophile.com/node/47563

Nick Cooke

The thread is no longer there but he has not taken down the font.

Michael

Sorry to bring up the old Chopin-Polonaise thing. But I see that Chopin Script is actually up for download at DaFONT: http://www.dafont.com/chopin-script.font

Plus, it's released under public domain, which means free to use it as you like it.

But Polonaise has to be purchased: http://www.fontshop.com/fonts/downloads/urw/urw_polonaise/

I personally cannot see any great difference between the two.

So, is it safe to use Chopin Script for commercial projects?

Freya

Even though I could have settled for Poetica (which is quite lovely too and in certain instances can accomplish similar things) I just could not resist Pouty. I didn’t know you made this one Michael. Thank you!

Mikey :-)

PS... I purchased this one through Font Bureau.

Mikey

Was this set on a PC?

Did you get the alternates too?

Michael

Hi Michael:

This was set within the FontBook application included with OS X. I bought Pouty first as a Postscript font then I called FB and asked them for the OpenType. I got the alts with the Postscript and their integrated in the OpenType.

Mikey :-)