> Posted by Jay Fraser on Friday, August 01, 2003 - 8:26 am: > > Where did it come from? What does it mean? Is there something better? > > I tried googling the sucker, w/ no joy. A search here in Typophile > produced nothing. But even FontLab has it as a default selection... > > I ask because I was planning on using it in a demonstration, & I'm > sure the question will come up. > > Thx.

If you're asking where the word Hamburgevons came from, it's not a real word. Historically, those letterforms exhibit the principle characteristics of a given typeface. So it's a quick way to get an idea of what the entire font looks like. Sometimes seen as Hamburgefons, you can also set a pailndrome sentence, such as "Frowzy things plumb vex'd Jack Quadrat!".

Tony

Tony--A nitpick here: A palindrome is something that reads the same backwards as forward (e.g., "Madam, I'm Adam."). What you have there is a pangram, a sentence (usually) which contains all the letters of the alphabet.

> Posted by Mark Simonson on Friday, August 01, 2003 - 8:49 am: > > Tony--A nitpick here: A palindrome is something that reads the same > backwards as forward (e.g., "Madam, I'm Adam."). What you have there > is a pangram, a sentence (usually) which contains all the letters of > the alphabet.

Yep, sorry about that. Not nitpicking at all! Is it pangram or panagram?

"Pangram".

BTW:
http://www.microsoft.com/typography/links/news.asp?NID=2454

hhp

Actually, I started with "Hamburgevons", but then switched to "Hamburgefonts" because I'm not particularly fond of the "v". I like the concept of "...one word that displays all the major strokes in a typeface," but who invented it?

I know what's going to happen: I'm going to be standing up in front of a bunch of suits and someone will say: "what's a 'Hamburgefont'?" I'd like to have something better (more snazzy) to say than "just a nonsense word."

Thanks!

> Actually, I started with "Hamburgevons", but then switched to > "Hamburgefonts" because I'm not particularly fond of the "v". I like > the concept of "...one word that displays all the major strokes in a > typeface," but who invented it?

This I don't get at all. Your not fond of the V? All the more reason to include it in a test word.

From what I remember URW started using the Hamburgefontsiv test word. Something to do with the fact that they were located in Hamburg.

"hamburgevons" - the time-proven test word - might have been accidentally turned to "hamburgerfonts" (and the other weird variations I've seen) by some English speaker who didn't realize Germans pronounce "v" like our "f".

Paul

(re "Madam, I'm Adam.")

What a great book, by the way. Hilarious.


(re Hamburgefonts, etc.)


Linotype, I know, was using it by 1978 or 1980. I saw it used there in their letter drawing office, and they got me to use it in the planning of my TF Bryn Mawr series.

I never asked them, but might Linotype have started using it via Mr. Frutiger or Mr. Zapf?

Ruari McLean's excellent 1980 'The Thames and Hudson Manual of Typography' shows just the phrase 'Hamburg' being used in some Monotype Plantin showings on p. 78.

That might have helped spur its popular use along.

The idea with 'Hamburgefonts' and 'HAMBURGEFONTS' (as I first saw it used at Linotype and about the same time, printed in the pages of ITC's wonderful old 'U&lc' printed publication), and later 'Hamburgefonstiv' and 'HAMBURGEFONSTIV' (as it was later first expanded on in print, elsewhere) was that if you started defining a new typeface concept with those letters, that by the time you were through, you'd have all tested all the shapes and intercharacter relationships (providing sidebearings) for what you'd need to define pretty much throughout the rest of the font.

ITC started showing it in their publication 'U&lc' in ads announcing to budding designers how to submit new typeface ideas to them. Basically, they (as I recall) just wanted to first see 'Hamburgefonts' and 'HAMBURGEFONTS'.

I agree that it likely came from Linotype or perhaps the old URW (while they were digitizing ITC typefaces on contract). Linotype was using URW's (Dr. Karow's) IKARUS minicomputer-based (not desktop yet) digitizing system then.

Or, perhaps from the old iteration of H. Berthold AG (based in Berlin).

H. Berthold AG's positively exquisite 'E2, Berthold Fototypes, Body Types, Volume 1' (February 1980), on p. LXVIII, uses 'Hamburgefons'. (Actually the whole line was displayed as 'H Hxkp

OK, looks like we haven't got to the "fons et origo" of that one. Yet.

How about "Lorem ipsum dolor...."?

Nick Shinn wrote

>How about "Lorem ipsum dolor...."?


I recall reading, sometime in the 1980s, where that Latin quote, in its original form, derived from.

A reader of a graphic design magazine was asking the editor/readership, because Letraset had so popularized it on their 'greeking copy' dry transfer sheets.

It's out there, Moulder. ;-)

An older employee from Letraset's earlier days ('60s, '70s), in the UK, would likely know.

Joe

The lorem ipsum thing came up on Typographica last December (via Typographer.com and/or Zeldman). The site mentioned there (www.lipsum.com) had a translation of the original Latin text and an online lorem ipsum generator. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be up now, but I also found this on the Straight Dope site.

Thanks, Mark, very much!

>"There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain . . ."

Definitely chosen by a type designer, to be brought forward from the past quotation condensation, and specimens.

Wonder which specimen book it was?

Joe

Actually, www.lipsum.com is up this morning. It must have just been temporarily down last night.

Related to pangrams, I found the following text file on my hard drive. I wish I could remember who sent it to me (it may have been David Lemon, back when I was still with Adobe). If anyone recognizes it as their own work of compilation, I apologize in advance for not recalling the credit. I have used many of the sentences from this file for testing fonts over the years. Enjoy.

http://www.splorp.com/junk/pangrams.txt

> Posted by Grant Hutchinson on Monday, August 04, 2003 - 7:11 am: > > Related to pangrams, I found the following text file on my hard drive. > I wish I could remember who sent it to me (it may have been David > Lemon, back when I was still with Adobe). If anyone recognizes it as > their own work of compilation, I apologize in advance for not > recalling the credit. I have used many of the sentences from this file > for testing fonts over the years. Enjoy. > > http://www.splorp.com/junk/pangrams.txt

I got this from David Lemon too when I was doing my graduate work at RIT. I think he said that it was just a compiled list from many sources.

If you want to try your hand at writing pangrams, try this: Pangrammer Helper. It's a little Flash application I designed partly to promote an upcoming font release. It's not officially on my site yet and isn't quite finished, but it works as is and is fun to play with.

If you use Safari, the cut-'n'-paste feature does not work from the edit menu or with the keyboard short cuts. You must control-click over the editing field and use the contextual pop-up menu. This appears to be a bug in Safari related to Flash content.

Also, the server my site resides on seems a little flaky this morning. If you have trouble getting to it, wait a few minutes and try again. I'm looking into it.

Pangram

It's weird to see new avatars on an old post.

Yes, especially when someone comments on them.

My personal avatar history, starting with the oldest:

Mark – I recently picked up a book here at the office, and the very first page I turned to contained your current avatar.

Pangram at DUX 2005, presentation given by our very own Mr Benson.

Mark – I recently picked up a book here at the office, and the very first page I turned to contained your current avatar.

Yup. It's the hand of lettering legend (and personal hero) Tommy Thompson, from one of his books.

About Hamburg...

I still have a measuring tool I got from a prepress company in Helsinki sometime in the 80's. It has cap heights, lines, angles, screens, a ruler and text models in different sizes typed "Hamburg". Odd though, all the type related measurements are in millimeters.

That must have been a Berthold-measuring tool. I have some of those around, too. Provided by Dutch typesetting legend Eduard Bos.

bert_vanderveen: "That must have been a Berthold-measuring tool. I have some of those around, too. Provided by Dutch typesetting legend Eduard Bos."

Possibly. It only has the company's name. Sadly, they don't excist anymore. I have a different kind of tool, too (without the Hamburg), also given by a different typesetting company no longer in business.

I have one of those - and I think it's an Agfa.
Because most fonts (especially back in the day)
have comparable usage of the EM space, it sort
of works.

hhp

I have a couple of the old Agfa versions stashed away somewhere, and I think I showed it to a few students as an "antique."

> Also, I recall that the old compuGraphic company (later Agfa, and now AgfaMonotype) used to similarly tell submitting designers to use another keyword. I believe theirs was instead 'Champion' and 'CHAMPION'.

This (was) is very true, Joe.
When I first landed at CG, I did see "CHAMPIONED - championed" and "CHAMPIONS - champions" as variations as well.

Since ITC started sending all of their source specimens (film font days) and used "Hamburgerfons" the Type Dept. at CG started using it more for comparitive purposes.

Wow! what an old fossil this spambot dug up!

I recall seeing "Championed" in some old design magazines, but more recently the phrase "Humanfleshburger"is one I've seen font samples in.

Linotype, I know, was using it by 1978 or 1980. I saw it used there in their letter drawing office, and they got me to use it in the planning of my TF Bryn Mawr series.
I never asked them, but might Linotype have started using it via Mr. Frutiger or Mr. Zapf?

If so, Linotype must have had it through Stempel (Frankfurt, Germany) because they did the drawings for most of the Linotype faces in Europe, including those by Zapf and Frutiger.

In Germany, the use of the word Hamburg for comparative use is at least as old as Wetzig’s „Handbuch der Schriftarten“ Albrecht Seemann Verlag, Leipzig, 1926.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicksherman/13958527292/