The historical situation, as far I have ascertained it, is as follows:

The defunct H. Berthold AG, in 1992, one year before it went bankrupt in 1993, converted the old 1950 Palatino font, with the permission of Hermann Zapf, to a Postscript font, which is shown and embedded in the PDF scangraphic.pdf (see below) as "Palatino BQ" (see the PDF document properties).

Several other font forging, font cloning and font renaming outfits, among them Scangraphic, Franzis, Softmaker, grapped this Postscript font file "Berthold BQ" after Berthold's bankruptcy and sold it under fancy names, e.g. under the names "Paxim" (Scangraphic), "Palazzo" (Softmaker), "Palmer" (Franzis), etc.

See for example

www.sanskritweb.net/forgers/scangraphic.pdf, page 13

www.sanskritweb.net/forgers/megafont.pdf, page 9

www.sanskritweb.net/forgers/franzis.pdf, page 23

www.sanskritweb.net/forgers/franzis2.pdf, page 42

You may use any of these versions, and also the old Berthold BQ version, for free, but you must not claim to be the copyright owner or the design owner, because the typopgraphical design rights to this 1950 Palatino have fallen into public domain.

It must be pointed out too that the 1950 metal version of Palatino is a completely different animal that the digital versions... two totally different printing processes that make different demands on the face.

Michael

Uli,
Thank you so much for the response; this answers my questions perfectly.

Michael,
I did a quick comparison of the only scan of the 1950 metal typed page that I could find and Palazzo Original. To my untrained eye, they are about as close as fonts can be that are derived from different technology requirements. I thank you also for your comment; greatly appreciated.

All the Best,
John

As typerror correctly stated, the 1950 metal version was completely different, especially in small point sizes. The attached sample

www.sanskritweb.net/temporary/palatino-8-point.jpg

scanned from a mid-1960 book shows 1950 Palatino, which had been typeset in 8 on 10 points and had been printed by letterpress on wove paper. There was virtually no contrast between thin upstrokes and thick downstrokes (e.g. of capital A etc.) in small point sizes.

If you cannot find an online repro of Palatino, especially from Feder und Stichel, I will post one. The Stempel version, as cut by Rosenberger, is much heavier than the current crop. as a result of the printing process. This also affects many of the characteristics of the forms. Educate your eyes my friend.

Michael

Hello,

Uli,
That scan is certainly different from what I was comparing Palazzo Original with. Thanks for taking the time to post it.

Michael,
I would greatly appreciate it if you would post an online repro of Palatino. Any version you deem authentic would be great. Thank you for your forensics on this. My eyes are being educated as we speak; maybe even a little enlightenment is creeping in.

All the Best,
John

http://typophile.com/node/16602

There also at least a thread here on Typophile with images of various old cuts of Palatino.
Unfortunayely, I'm unable to locate it.

thacket:

I uploaded here

www.sanskritweb.net/fontdocs/index.html#PALA92

for your convenience as character set specimens a PDF file

www.sanskritweb.net/fontdocs/pala92.pdf

and also a zipped PostScript file

www.sanskritweb.net/fontdocs/pala92ps.zip

of the Berthold Palatino 1992 (= Palatino 1950).

Of special interest is the PS file, which contains all seven fonts with all available glyphs fully embedded in PFA format which is viewable with Fontlab and other programs.

One other important consideration is that Palatino was originally intended by Zapf to be a display face, although today just about anything with 'palatino' on it is used as a text face.

Zapf's other design, Aldus was intended to be a companion text face to palatino and as I understand it, is somewhat of the equivalent of what might have been called "palatino book." Notice the overall shape of the letters and the fact that there really is only one weight.

evan

At the Linotype website I read this:

"Palatino, ... Michelangelo, ... are registered trademarks of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG which may be registered in certain jurisdictions."

see http://image.linotype.com/files/pdf/pressreleases/Palatino_nova_e.pdf

At the same Linotype website I also read this:

"Michelangelo is a trademark of Berthold Types Limited."

see http://www.linotype.com/261389/michelangelobq-family.html

Who really owns the font trademark "Michelangelo"?

> Who really owns the font trademark “Michelangelo”?

In the United States, the trademark for Michelangelo as applied to typeface fonts is apparently registered to:

(REGISTRANT) Berthold Types Limited CORPORATION ILLINOIS 47 West Polk Street, #100-340 Chicago ILLINOIS 60605

Registration Number : 2624424
Registration Date : September 24, 2002

http://tess2.uspto.gov/

thacket:

> If I purchase the CD from Softmaker

Most of the ripoff stuff available from Softmaker is also available from Sybex as re-renamed ripoff fonts.

see www.sanskritweb.net/forgers/anniversary.pdf

kentlew:

Since the Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG had the trademark registered too, at least for Germany, maybe for other countries as well,

see www.sanskritweb.net/temporary/Michelangelo.jpg

this means that the Berthold Ltd. outfit infringes on the German trademark law by using the word Michelangelo on a German website, e.g. at www.linotype.com.

I wish I could track this by clicking something instead of posting nothing.

Hello,

Thank you all for your kind and timely comments. I have played with the font Palatino in text using FontForge. Even in text sizes, it reads very well for a display face. It is a hair light, but that is what Aldus was developed to address. This is very good forum with many hands and minds willing to help a neophyte.

I noticed that the question of ethics and legality is a little muddy (at least for me) with various opinions. To be on the safe side, I will only use the font for my personal use and convert characters to graphics when I embed, which I rarely do.

Uli,
Thanks for the links and documents; they were extremely helpful.

Michael,
Thanks for the education and enlightenment.

All others,
Thanks for the copyright data and the information on Aldus as a text companion to Palatino.

One more thing,
I find Palatino easy to read at text sizes as well as easy on the eyes. What are your opinions? What publications, books, etc use or have used the original Palatino? How about the original Aldus?

Thanks again,
John

As regards Aldus, there is also a very very rare narrow cut, which will be new to most Typophilers. This "Narrow Aldus", called "Enge Aldus" in German, was made available for the Linotype machine in circa 1962.

A rare typesetting specimen is shown here

www.sanskritweb.net/temporary/Enge-Aldus.jpg

This Narrow Aldus is not available as a digital font.

Are you sure this is in fact different than Aldus... I will do some research. It means narrow. Aldus WAS the narrower, and revised version of Palatino... the text version as opposed to the display. I have Stempel posters I will try and scan if it will not hurt them in any way.

Michael

typerror:

> Are you sure this is in fact different than Aldus... I will do some research. It means narrow. Aldus WAS the narrower, and revised version of Palatino... the text version as opposed to the display. I have Stempel posters I will try and scan if it will not hurt them in any way.

The above scan Enge-Aldus.jpg was drawn from page 13 of the 1967 edition "Linotype Schriften". On page 11 of this same edition, the normal Aldus is also shown.

The very rare "Enge Aldus" was shown for the first time in the 1962 "Linotype Schriftenreigen", but I preferred the 1967 edition for a scan, because it was printed on calendered paper resulting in a better scan.

The Stempel AG did not make a hand-composition version of Enge Aldus, which was only available for slug casting machine composition, and also only in 9 point ("Borgis") suitable for big novels. If it helps you, I can also upload page 11 of the 1967 book showing the normal Aldus for comparison.

I talked to Paul Shaw last night and he was as confounded as I was. We had never seen it. Thanks for enlightening me.

COOL :-)

Michael

Very cool indeed. I am only just beginning to look at fonts and their history. I didn't realize the complexity and beauty of that history. Would anyone have any beginners books to recommend on the history of typography? I seem to be hooked; just reel me in.

Was aldus/palatino ever popular as a text combination? If so, what time period? As its popularity waned, what took its place? Thanks.

All the Best,
John

P.S. -- typerror, I just realized that I have been referring to you by your signed name, not your forum name. I didn't mean to offend. Sorry about that.

John... not a problem. You can call me anything, just not late for dinner :-)

Michael

The defunct H. Berthold AG, in 1992, one year before it went bankrupt in 1993, converted the old 1950 Palatino font, with the permission of Hermann Zapf, to a Postscript font

Is there a source for this piece of information? How was the digitization accomplished?

> Is there a source for this piece of information?

Ask him directly:

Hermann Zapf
Seitersweg 35
64287 Darmstadt

Uli

There are other ways of researching rather than posting Herr Zapf's address :-(

Michael

By the way, this is now being sold as Marathon Serial at Myfonts and other foundries:
http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/softmaker/marathon-serial/
http://www.fontspring.com/fonts/softmaker/marathon-serial

We know it's probably not ethical, but: is it legal?

hhp

Hrant,
Sean Cavanaugh's Softmaker story here: http://www.typophile.com/node/52651#comment-318148
Seems legal to me...

Yes, I remember that coming up many years ago on Typo-L. I was wondering if anything had changed since then. More like wishful thinking I guess... :-/ Nonetheless, I personally wouldn't recommend supporting Softmaker.

hhp

follow

The font file, Palatino BQ from Berthold, would be protected by copyright (for 100 years, as an institutional work - 95 in the U.S.) even if the design has no legal protection. A font file is like a book or a computer program, it has unquestionable and ironclad copyright protection.

Just because Berthold went bankrupt doesn't mean it is an orphan work - presumably one of H. Berthold AG's creditors owns the font. And I'm surprised, therefore, that something so valuable - the only authentic digital version of Palatino - isn't still offered for sale.

Actually, there are enough books out there exhibiting Palatino in hot metal form that I'm surprised, given that there are open-source imitations of Palatino out there, that there isn't a properly done, but legal, swipe of the typeface in a digital font.

I have also come across a version of Aldus that is slightly different from the Linotype version, called Aldus BQ.