It would have been the same with Helvetica or Akzidenz Grotesk.

Neither of which is at the top of a Font menu on a Windows box.

—
Joe Clark
http://joeclark.org/

Perhaps Arial should just stay “Under the Sea.”

ChrisL

I assumed ‘Kim Jong II’ referred to one of fearless leader’s Bond-villainesque clones.

In some fonts Kim could also be read as Kirn.

King Jom II - the son of his father.

Neither of which is at the top of a Font menu on a Windows box.

I predict, for the future of typography, the AAAAAAAA Andy’s Towing Company school of nomenclature shall prevail.

-=®=-

On a clean install Windows (Windows 7 + Office) machine Arial is 11th, with Cambria, Calibri, and eight other “A” fonts ahead of it. Which does put it close to the top. Wonder where it would be on a similar out-of-box Mac install?

The Mac goes alphabetical

ChrisL

A client of mine has decided to use capital L for liters to avoid confusion. It annoys me, but I sort of understand the reasons behind it.

It’s neither here nor there, but in Japan they still use ℓ for litres.

This has a lot of do with context, though. You wouldn’t say, for example, “Oh, I should make some line art in Adobe the-third-istrator.”

Si will keep in mind that every Windows user knows what Arial is; most think it’s “clean.” Some software defaults to its use. Si cannot seriously believe that more than a fraction of Windows users have enough knowledge to know what typefaces will harm them, as in the case of reading them aloud for an entire nation.

Hence, a familiar font name way up high in an alphabetical list will get used more.

—
Joe Clark
http://joeclark.org/

Obviously the underpaid chap who types up the script for the news anchor to read would not use Arial if they had a Mac, they would use whatever defaults Mac Office uses (Cambria?). I was just wondering how high up the list Arial falls on a typical Mac install. The age old question: Does it go up to 11?

ChrisL

Thanks Chris, although some of those entries stretch the definition of “alphabetic” :-)

I always hated that dingbat fonts get shown in their own “font” :-)

ChrisL

I think Mac has always had trouble with “symbol encoded” fonts, but better than the app that always treated font names containing “ding” as symbol fonts - “Wedding Script” got the shaft.

But, Chris, what on earth is “ITC Galliard” doing between “Bauer” and “Bank”? Why two “Bauer Bodoni”? Did you fiddle the list for our amusement?

“Did you fiddle the list for our amusement?”

The list is straight and unaltered. I don’t even use a font activating utility.
Several of these fonts are old type one PostScript from back in the day when the bigger font vendors doctored names so that their corporate name did not affect the order—Adobe Garamond fell under “G” instead of “A”. How “ITC” sneaks in in the “B” area makes no sense even with that. My guess is that the old way meets the new way and got fritzed in the process—that or it is a clue from the Knights of the Templar :-)

ChrisL

dezcom, that’s the MS Word list. Try a program that uses the system font list, like TextEdit or BBEdit.

—
Joe Clark
http://joeclark.org/

I know, Joe, that is what Si asked for above.

Here is the list from Textedit:

It seems all that goofy ordering above is a Microsoft Office issue.

ChrisL

Thanks Chris. I didn’t suggest word to point out a font menu bug (although I’ve passed it on to the team) just thought it was likely the app used to develop the script for the news reader.

That’s OK, Si, at least now they know about it and may fix it.

ChrisL

sweet - did you make that? If so can I use it in a presentation I’m giving to some designers?

Cheers,Si

LOL!!! Good one, Dan!

ChrisL

Great stuff! Did you notice that this guy and the Iranian one both look like they still let their mother dress them?