Can you name, say, five "fake" typefaces?

If I illegally downloaded a font and used that, would it be recognized as "fake"? (Perhaps if it's an unique design and the font designer doesn't remember selling it to me.)

Is Arial a 'fake' Helvetica, or a design of its own?

Very interesting.. Who determines what is fake and what isn't fake? The user?

To many, Arial is a 'fake' Helvetica. A PC rip off, because they didn't want to pay the licence fee of Helvetica.. Surely, its down to the user?

But 'fake' websites like 1001fonts etc.. Do people realise these fonts are fake?

Do you think Arial is a 'fake' Helvetica? Having Helvetica designed in 1957 and Arial in 1982, it does make you wonder...

Fakery? Gutenberg and Schoeffer set the tone with their simulacrum of the quilled page.

Poliphilus was a great fake, a 20th century Linotype face able to create a facsimile Incunabula page.
My Scotch Modern attempts the same thing, for digital+offset to mimic mid 19th century typography (see present issue of Eye magazine.)

Chalet was launched with a fake provenance.

Oneleigh is an historical fiction, designed in the style of 1920s historicism, seventy years later.

Script fonts fake handwriting.
Duffy Script fakes the random irregularity of a hand-drawn script with programmed multiple contextual alternates.

But I don't think these kinds of fakery are what you had in mind, your topic seems to be more about protecting consumers from piracy and plagiarism.

But 'fake' websites like 1001fonts etc.. Do people realise these fonts are fake?

Alas, I think they don't. Joe Public 'needs' a font, types its name into Google and finds it on one of these sites. The sites don't carry a warning or something. Joe Public thinks "hey this font stuff must be free 'cause my computer comes with a bunch of stuff installed", downloads, and goes to sleep, safe in the knowledge that if it's on the 'web, it Must Be Free.

Search this forum for posts "requesting" (actually, often more like demanding) a font so-and-so; read the hurt comments of the people that make fonts for a living, and followed by incredulous replies of the original posters. "Wot, that font's not free!? You bunch of rip-offs!"

Thanks Nick Shinn. I am looking at Fakery in a very broad context at the moment. Possibily too broad. I need to narrow it down to a particular theme.

I am looking at how Fakery is a screen, sort of like a mask. You are not showing the real 'you' if you hide behind a mask. I need to think of a way of exploring this message typographically..

Theunis de Jong: I think you are correct. This could be another angle to look into..

"I am looking at how Fakery is a screen, sort of like a mask. You are not showing the real 'you' if you hide behind a mask."

Reminds me of something Nick touches on above: Script typefaces that pretend to be somebody's handwriting (warm, soft, personal, handmade, and all the blah that comes with that), but in fact are fonts that anyone can buy; they only pretend to be the designer's* unique, personal expression.
Things that make it obvious that what we're looking at is really a font –like repeating, identical glyphs, or connection errors– can be as jarring as realizing that this person who's been beaming a smile at you has in fact, not only fake teeth, but a rather fake face altogether. So much for masks…
(* I mean the designer using the font in this case, not the type designer.)

Script typefaces that pretend to be somebody's handwriting (warm, soft, personal, handmade, and all the blah that comes with that), but in fact are fonts that anyone can buy

Especially grating when used as a "personal" note on bulk-rate junk-mail offers, which seems to be where I encounter them most.

To me, real fake typefaces are the Adobe Multiple Master substitution fonts, Adobe Sans MM and Adobe Serif MM. If the originally intended font is not available, Acrobat Reader will replace it with these fallback fonts, chameleon-like emulating its proportions (some background and a Flickr group).

Prior to DTP, marketing "newsletters" did in fact adopt the look of typed letters, set in typefaces that faked typewriter type.
Such typefaces had been made almost since the invention of the typewriter.

And these typewriter-like metal types might be printed through silk, so as to further emulate the look of individual typewriting.

Really helpful everyone. Thankyou.

Nick, you seem to know a lot about the subject? Do you have any publications/Notes you have written that I could delve into?

Nick

"Script fonts fake handwriting"

That is truly a stretch. I am not even sure as to how to respond to that. If anything is fake, it is transitional and sans serif!

Not only handwriting of course, but also hand lettering.
Haven't you made a few of those yourself?

The process is commoditization, as the skilled products of one generation of technology users (e.g. scribes with pens) are automated and turned into a commodity (type) which imitates what went before. It's one of McLuhan's Laws.

In early Photoshop, it was possible to mimic "airbrush" effects, but difficult, as layers and dedicated filters did not exist. Then the effect was commoditized in pre-set filters.

But not everyone is beholden to using others' tools to make their thing, some make their own tools.

**

In typesetting, tasks which were done manually -- justification and kerning -- have now been automated.
Contentiously, InDesign's "Optical" kerning fakes the "Metrics" kerning in digital fonts, which in turn fakes the manual on-demand, instance-by-instance kerning of foundry type composing.

Nick, you seem to know a lot about the subject?

I wrote a series of magazine articles 2000-2005, some of which address the role of technological change in type and design culture, which IMO is the Big Question. They're at shinntype.com, under "Writing".

> Prior to DTP, marketing "newsletters" did in fact adopt
> the look of typed letters, set in typefaces that faked
> typewriter type.

WGBH-TV in Boston had a nice newsletter done entirely in typewriter-style type back in the 80s. And I still see typewriter fonts used occasionally in marketing pieces, although obviously not as often as in the past. Mostly pieces aimed at older folks.

And designers also continue to simulate the look of Polaroid photos even though Polaroids are rarely used these days. Just an iconic look, I guess.

@ Nick

I do not think that any of my faces have any relevance to pre-occuring specific "hands." The fact that they are writ does not mean they are fakes.

Name me one Nick. And the fact that I have availed myself to modern technology does not mean I am "faking it" any more than any other production method; type "throughout the centuries" has regurgitated copies/revisions/whatever ad nauseam. At least I don't rely on forms that have been done to death... over and over again.

Hi Jen

This is an ISTD student project right? I only saw it today and believe you need more time to reflect on the question itself – before asking a forum as packed and diverse as this one What is your opinion on ...stuff in general?

Or to put it another way, what is your opinion on authenticity? You're a student of typography. Get thee to a library...

...the fact that I have availed myself to modern technology does not mean I am "faking it" any more than any other production method ...

I wasn't suggesting you were. I've argued above that with each generation of new technology, much of the fresh output mimics the effects of previous technology, and is in that sense fakery, adopting the appearance of something that it is not.

When people use a script font that is strongly informed by hand lettering skills, they want some of that cachet without paying for a custom job, and quicker and more immediately flexible. At the same time, script fonts have their own dialog with type and type history. It is a horse of a slightly different color, because the typographer can experiment with the setting typographically.

Hi Ben,

Correct, this is an ISTD project. I'm am currently reading a book on authenticity, but just wanted to throw it out there and see what other people thought about the subject. But I suppose you are right. It is my opinion that I need to build upon. Its just interesting to hear others too!

Thanks for the advice.

If this is about authenticity, then the problem is inherent in representation itself, and the issue of authenticating the author is as old as writing.