bloody rip off artists!

[segura]

Tiffany, First of all... Thank you for having our back. And, thanks for sending this to me. How very unfortunate that folks are so quick to chop anyone down without the facts.

I have been discussing this with Chester in a very friendly way since we learned of it. We have had a good relationship with Chester for many years (as we try with all others) and plan to keep it that way.

We had no idea that this font was a rip-off. It is practically impossible to know of every situation, or to know, or control what designers do.

We can only react responsibly as soon as we can, as we did here, and, of course, have already removed it from our offering. I hope this lowers the temperature here. It is really not necessary to start off on a negative. Best to all.

[dezcom]

Glad to see that talking the the right folks does the trick. Hats off to all of you for quickly doing the right thing.

ChrisL

[segura]

Thank Dexcom.

[pattyfab]

Yes, he has a gruff manner and an... “unedited” prose style, but he’s a good guy.

I agree with Carlos that there was no need for such a harsh tone right off the bat. It's important to point these things out, but to leap to insults is unnecessary. It reminds me of the guy I kinda know who was running around yelling "someone stole my cell phone" when it was in his bag and he just couldn't find it.

[malbright]

If only every outfit operated with the integrity and sense of responsiblity as these two. I respect them even more than I did before, and that's saying a lot.

Bravo.

[segura]

Again, thanks to Pattyfab & Malbright. :-)

[Stephen Coles]

Great to have you here, Carlos. Thanks for fixing the issue so quickly and protecting the original design.

[Nick Shinn]

My apologies, Carlos.

[segura]

Apology accepted Nick. :-))

[ebensorkin]

I respect them even more than I did before, and that’s saying a lot.

Well put.

Cheers Carlos!

[SuperUltraFabulous]

Glad to see all has been worked out in a timely manner. And Tiff, you did the right thing :-) I hope Mr. Nojima will learn a valuable lesson here... BE ORIGINAL! Perhaps he will design something fabulous one day and we'll be speaking of him in a more positive light.

Mikey :-)

PS... if not he can work for this company:
http://www.macxware.com/candypress/Scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=67

[SuperUltraFabulous]

While I'm at it!!!

I think everyone should have a look this. Both in Germany. The original- Ingrid Liche, this other one- Joachim Frank.
Is this what I think it is ??????

http://www.fontshop.com/fonts/downloads/fontfont/ff_liant/

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/joachim-frank/waldorf/

http://www.waldorfschrift.de/index.html

Here we go again :-/

Mike Diaz

[Ken Messenger]

I'm always impressed with the lack of creativity even with the name changes:

Mistral to Mystic
Algerian to Tangiers
Tekton to Techno

Stupefying.

[Endre Berentzen]

My hats off to you to Tiff!
I wish I had your calm and correct approach in some of my prior client meetings;-)

[Ricardo Cordoba]

Hmm... I don't know if I would call that lack of creativity, Ken; I think it's more of a wink-wink thing... You know, they give it a similar name, or one that references similar sounds or names, so that you recognize what face is being ripped off...

[raph]

Yes, I'm impressed with T26's professional handling of this, and even more so with our fabulous moderators. As for Mr. Nojima, I hope he learns his lesson.

The discussion about Futura/Avenir/Gotham is another interesting one to have, but maybe we won't go into it in depth here. To me, it is self-evident that Gotham references Avenir. The "G" alone has that distinctive Adrian Frutiger form, and if you look at the lowercase you'll find that the only letter that's structurally different is the 'k' (Avenir has a symmetrical right part, like Univers, while Gotham's bottom leg meets the top leg partway). Futura is significantly different from both others: single story 'a', tail of 'g' curves up, tails of 'j' and 'y' are straight, top of 'r' curls to 1:30 (it's noon on both Gotham and Avenir), top bowl of 's' is much smaller than bottom, bottom of 't' is straight, 'u' has no right stem, and apexes of 'v' and 'w' are pointy.

But I'm not saying that's a bad thing, quite the contrary. H&FJ have created something that's a little bit new and different, and (by taking the challenge of increasing the x-height) definitely a lot better for some uses. That is a fine standard for type designers to aspire toward.

[fontplayer]

Non-gender-specific attaboys to the parties that worked out the facts. One can always get plenty of exercise jumping to conclusions.

[Thomas Phinney]

Nick, would you care to elaborate on your insinutation about Myriad? Did you skip my presentation at TypeCon, or do you have a counterpoint?

[Uli]

> like microsoft (segoe) or adobe (myriad)

> Nick, would you care to elaborate on your insinutation about Myriad?

I think that everyone knows (including Mr. Phinney) what is meant by "like microsoft (segoe) or adobe (myriad)", because Myriad (vs. Frutiger)

see http://www.sanskritweb.net/forgers/ssi.pdf

is in the same category as

Segoe (vs. Frutiger)
Veracity (vs. Utopia),
Aeon (vs. Infinity),
Waldorfschrift (vs. FF-Liant)

etc. etc. etc.

While Mr. Segura frankly admits that Aeon is a "rip-off" (and without delay removes this forgery from his website), Mr. Phinney would never have the courage to admit that Myriad is a "rip-off", nor would Mr. Gates ever have the courage to admit that Segoe is a "rip-off" of Frutiger, despite the incontestable and non-appealable decision, that Segoe and Frutiger are "considered identical" (denoting in legalese that Segoe is a rip-off).

see http://www.sanskritweb.net/forgers/segoe.pdf

[k.l.]

Mike Diaz: I think everyone should have a look this. Both in Germany. The original [FF Liant] -- Ingrid Liche, this other one [Waldorf] -- Joachim Frank.

I think that's a typefaces from the twenties or thirties. In this respect, FF Liant is as 'original' as 'this other one'. In the FontFont 2004/05 catalog it's in the 'historic' section, by the way. So nothing to worry about.  ;-)

[Thomas Phinney]

Here are samples of Myriad (top) and Frutiger (bottom). I think type designers should be able to judge for themselves, but they sure look significantly different to me.

[ebensorkin]

Thanks Thomas!

[Dunwich Type]

OH SNAP!

[Uli]

... they sure look significantly different to me

Since the legal notion of "considered identical" (as used in the Segoe decision) ignores minutiae, it is useless, from the legal point of view, to point to such details as e.g. that the Myriad-i has a round dot and that the Frutiger-i has as square dot.

The only legally relevant criterion is the "show-through effect".

Typophilers are so very much specialized and so very much devoted to minutiae that they are usually not able to experience the show-through effect. Therefore it is necessary to explain the show-through effect to typophilers with reference to other intellectual works, for instance with reference to poetical works.

Have a look at the following poem:

Lion Lion, burning bright,
In the deserts of the night;
What immortal arm or eye,
Could make thy dreadful symmetry?

If you are familiar with English poetry, you will almost instantaneously experience the show-through effect while you are reading the above poem. What does this effect mean?

Of course the words "Lion Lion" not only "look significantly different", but ARE "significantly different" as compared with the two words in the original poem, and the words "deserts", "arm", "make", and "dreadful" are also "significantly different".

Nevertheless, the original poem shows through, when you read the above forgery. Therefore it is not necessary that I quote the original poem for comparison, because you instantaneously know the original poem which shows through here. This is called the show-through effect.

Exactly the same show-through effect is experienced by non-typophilers, if they are accustomed to read texts typeset in Frutiger and suddenly see a text typeset in Myriad. Of course, non-typophilers do not know the name Frutiger and do not know the name Myriad, but if they have read many texts typeset in Frutiger, they will spontaneously think that it is the same Frutiger typeface, if they are presented with a text typeset in Myriad. This means that Frutiger shows through in texts typeset in Myriad, and hence Myriad from the legal point of view is "considered identical" with Frutiger, even though several letters of the alphabet are not fully identical in design.

(Note: The term "show-through" is also used in the paper industry denoting that a text shows through from the reverse side of thin printing papers.)

[raph]

I call bullshit.