Melior, by Hermann Zapf
UniF, by Nina Hons (David)
LUSTPure, by LUST

(If I remember correctly, but these at least were some of the very first ones)

On “floppy disc”, c.1990:
Industria/Arcadia/Insignia (AgfaType)
Scala (FontFont)
Alternate Gothic No.2/Latin Extra Condensed/Modern 735/Swiss 924 (Bitstream)
Default: Scotch Modern

Does Letraset count? If yes, Avant Garde, Helvetica, and Týfa Antiqua (I think, sooo long ago).

My first 15,000 or whatever it was all came in one of those $5.00 downloads. I’m pretty sure I deleted them within a day.

Bell Centennial, Centaur and AT Bramley = not counting all the fonts we used to get when buying Illustrator, PageMaker, Canvass or on Power Computing System Disks or other software/hardware.

An IPA Phonetics font, Lucida math, and Mathematical Pi/Commercial Pi from Adobe.

(I typeset really weird stuff back in the day.)

Only two: ITC Legacy and ITC Mendoza Roman.

In 1991, I purchased several typefaces from Image Club in Calgary, Alberta. I had just written a magazine feature about the company and was excited at the prospect of choosing from what seemed at the time like an extensive catalog of type. The idea that I could go beyond what came on the Mac or with software packages seemed pretty wild.

Three that I remember being on those hotly anticipated floppies were:

Groschen (a quirky, wide sans serif that I can’t seem to find on reputable commercial font sites, only as a free TTF download from a site theat seems sketchy — won’t name it here);

Caslon Antique (Did I mention I was living in Alberta? The rustic aesthetic must have rubbed off on me); and

Liberty (again, I don’t see it available at reputable commercial font sites, but it looks like Goudy Handtooled)

> What is the first three fonts that you bought?

The first font was Serifa for approx. 1000 bucks.

Luckily, it was my employer, who payed the bill.

I sticked to Serifa. No need to buy another font.

Trade Gothic
House Fonts Luxury
Interstate

I use Helvetica Black to take notes. BIG Fat font.

The first three fonts I bought were part of a load of type that damn near busted the springs on my brand-new 1971 Datsun pickup. I had found this lode over near West Burke, Vermont.

I know there was one case of large Goudy Handtooled (see previous post for a link). What else was in that type stand I do not recall. I cleaned out the mouse poop, re-sorted all the foul distribution, and then . . . never used any of it, for I had no press. I sold it, for less than I paid, to the pressroom supervisor where I worked.

The first day FontShop SF was in business I ordered a font (on floppy). Since it was their first-ever order they threw in a floppy with another font on it. I never used that one, either. The floppy rotted away in my nasty basement after we moved.

powers

From Emigre in California to Mexico city 1992?-1993?
A floppy disc that was held in customs for over a month!

Arbitrary sans
Template gothic
Keedy sans
Variex

Scala Sans (Majoor)
Cezanne Pro (P22)
Vista Sans (Dupre)

Can’t remember the first three (floppies in storage — purchased in the late eighties), but I know which three were my last fontpurchases (in order from most recent):
1. Axel
2. National (extension to original release)
3. Dizzy

. . .
Bert Vanderveen BNO

The first 3 fonts I licensed were (not including those paid for by my employer): Epokha, Bergell, and, if memory serves, Laser. Reull’s Photo Blue had a rack filled with Letraset fonts and every time I went there for supplies I was tempted. I realize now these choices say a lot about me. But, keep in mind, this was the mid-nineties.

wow, I would of thought that everyone got the popular stuff. May I ask why?

Letraset / Helvetica, Floppy / P22 Bayer Universal, Download / Emigre Citizen (yes, it was a looong time ago).

Three weights of Berthold “Boulevard” in 1967.

That’s to say, real lead type!

Had to import all the little packets wrapped in brown paper, from Germany into the UK, and lay them out in the second-hand type cases I had set up in my father-in-law’s garage.

Cost me the equivalent of about $40,000 in today’s prices for just 3 weights (24pt, 18pt, 14pt, if I remember correctly, which sometimes I don’t after 42 years in the typesetting & print trade).

But I wanted it as something special that I was convinced would make my newly-started Wedding Invitation business really stand out!

And now you can get it as a free download!! :<

PHILIP CAPLAN

(Will, how could you be in this business & afford a new vehicle?)

Our typesetting machine (A-M) came with a bunch of fonts. These seemed sufficient for a while. The first two “fonts” I ordered were a special Times Roman — all the ligatures, old-style numbers, and small caps on one disk, and a special Berner (aka Sabon) with the same. They had to dig into the drawing drawer for the ligatures. The A-M “Sabon” were copies of Monotype drawings.

The special work made them cost about US $500 each circa 1980; couldn’t afford a third one for a while.

Saber
Affair
Giza Nine Three

As has been said before, excluding software-bundled fonts: Poliphilus and Blado, then Stone Sans.

(When I bought one Quark upgrade, they were doing a “get however-many-pounds-worth of Linotype fonts free” bundle; I picked Zapfino Pro, and the regular & bold versions of Silvermoon. Have hardly had call to use Silvermoon, but it’s still beautiful...)
_______________________________________________
Ever since I chose to block pop-ups, my toaster’s stopped working.

I’m a newbie, so I have just purchased my first two fonts, for my wedding invitations:

Estilo Regular
Estilo Script

Looks like I might be also purchasing Phaeton, for a logo design. (once the client decides!)

ITC Leopard (Mecanorma)
Bergell (Letraset)
Disk #1 from Fonthead

Scala
Gotham
HFJ Didot

*To answer your “why not the popular stuff” question Jacky, I think most people get the popular workhorse stuff either through software like Adobe Creative Suite, school, or from places they work rather than having to pay for less common faces. I’m over 40 and have only paid for all the type I use for about the last 5-6 years (including an Adobe Font Folio license).

Feijoa
Dolly
Seravek

@ Chen: Who/what is this survey for?

(And The first fonts I ever bought were a stack of Letraset. No clue which came first though. Possibly Helvetica, Times and Courier).

@ Christopher Dean
I guess for myself and everyone here in Typophile. Didn’t study graphic design back in art school or worked with a graphic designer for the past 10 years. So I do have a curiosity (And a sore sense of inadequacy) about what a real graphic designer is like.

I remember two month ago you were surveying good folks here for Academic purpose. Unfortunately, mine survey is purely for indulgence.

Carousel, Trade gothic & Futura

I probably would have bought Helvetica first if it didn’t come with my computer.
Next up - Sang Bleu

Stratum 1 by Process Type Foundry

Scala Sans OT by FontFont

Archer by Hoefler & Frere-Jones

@ Chen: If you want to have some fun, try looking for correlations between individuals first fonts and their demographic data (age, gender, experience &c.)

...wow, I would of [sic] thought that everyone got the popular stuff. May I ask why?

Industria and Scala were popular in 1990, and the other package of extra condensed faces was very useful, as there were no extra condensed fonts in the free bundles at that time (e.g. Adobe Plus Pack).

First fonts I bought were a set of Art Deco display faces. (digital)
They were quite reasonably priced, and I thought I had made a good deal
until the first time I tried to type ’Café’.

Letraset™
Eras
Helvetica
Latino Elongated by David Quay (for my GCSE “Walk on the wildside” project c.1989)

Diskettes
VegaTV (Scangraphic)
Berthold Imago
Antique Olive BQ

Default
Pseudo Text

The first type I bought was rub-down type in 1972 when I was about 16:

18 pt. Futura Bold (PresType)
36 pt. Caslon 540 (PresType)
72 pt. Helvetica Medium (Letraset)

Rub-down type! Blimey, I’d forgotten all about that. I guess mine was probably Helvetica, too, in that case!

feels a bit like asking “what was your first record”:
Trixie, Dolores, Scala on floppies

(writing that I feel very old now)

In the 1960’s, Letraset and Presstype. Tons of stuff. AG may have been first.

Digital:

1986 Floppy Disks: Univers, Univers Condensed, Univers Compressed.

ChrisL

Ooohhh — rubdown type… I had hundreds of sheets of that. MecaNorma, Letraset, Chartpak and others. Even some that were not rubdown, but more or less floatdown (you’d cut out the bits, separate from the backing in water and place the transparent plastic with printed type on your layout).

A big part of that was Helvetica, I am ashamed to admit, because I did a lot of exacting layouts for those information and serial number plates on machinery (best I did was for a F-16 droptank, but that was in Univers). You needed black as well as white type for that (the layouts were reversed) and white type was a bitch to work with — it would crack when you just looked at it. I must have tried every available rubdowntool available at the time. Had quite a collection of scalpels and x-acto’s too.

Before rubdown I would hop over to the art school 400 yards from my high school during lunch break, set type and make prints on baryte, to use in the high school magazine I designed, edited and illustrated almost singlehandedly. Learned to love Gill Sans.

Tossed all of the rubdowns the second year after I went Mac. Most of the eeeee’s and EEEEE’s were gone, anyway.

. . .
Bert Vanderveen BNO

The first type I ever interacted with was rub-down... or maybe it was on the phototypositor. Now I forget.