Comments on: Know Your Cuts of Font

Know Your Cuts of Font

wendell — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 05:09:24 -0800

Do you know your Birch from your Bembo from your Bauer Bodini (Hey! Where's Bookman?) At the moment, 34 fonts to identify with more coming soon. A fun way to spend 2-3 minutes and learn just how much a font nerd you really are. (I only got 25 out of 34? I'm ashamed!) Yes, the dreaded comic sans is part of the quiz, but not the others from the woebegotten Typematching post. Still, who the hell is Mrs. Eaves?

By: signal

signal — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 05:19:04 -0800

Just 28 pts.

By: jontyjago

jontyjago — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 05:19:27 -0800

Well, I got 16, the only ones I knew were Comic Sans, Times New Roman and Wingdings. The rest was dumb luck. My font-fu clearly needs work...

By: Termite

Termite — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 05:26:10 -0800

34... and I usually don't care about quizzes. Maybe I should change my job.

By: Etaoin Shrdlu

Etaoin Shrdlu — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 05:35:16 -0800

Hmm, 34/34, and no wild guesses necessary. Too much time around fonts...

By: Hogshead

Hogshead — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 05:42:18 -0800

29/34. if you don't know it by sight, a lot the time you can use a process of elimination to work out what it's not.

By: DU

DU — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 05:45:44 -0800

After guessing more or less randomly on the first 12, the only one I got right was Comic Sans. Heh.

By: ~

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 06:06:20 -0800

25/34, but work in the least arts- or design-y field imaginable. I can't believe I have brain cells devoted to this.

By: SansPoint

SansPoint — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 06:07:31 -0800

28/34. Not terrible.

By: BlueMetal

BlueMetal — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 06:21:52 -0800

HUZZAH! You scored 28 points out of 34

By: wensink

wensink — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 06:24:05 -0800

First read this as, "The rather Difficult Fonz Quiz." Coffee, please. Ayyyyy!

By: liza

liza — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 06:30:36 -0800

ahhh fruck. i scored 22 :P

By: KevinSkomsvold

KevinSkomsvold — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 06:36:59 -0800

Jesus, I read that as "Difficult Fonz Quiz." I'd probably score well on that which is sort of sad.

By: grouse

grouse — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 06:46:55 -0800

I'm ashamed that I did so well, actually. Although, in my case, at one point the samples stopped displaying at all (just a big white space) and I had to make totally wild guesses.

By: metrocake

metrocake — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 06:47:36 -0800

27/34 -- need to spend some more time around Didot, clearly... :P : headdesks :

By: blacklite

blacklite — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:06:03 -0800

I just ended up reading the old Comic Sans thread because of this post. I love every other font so much more after seeing Comic Sans. (I got 24 on the quiz.)

By: boombot

boombot — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:07:21 -0800

Still, who the hell is Mrs. Eaves? From Wikipedia:

Baskerville... hired Sarah Eaves as his housekeeper. Eventually her husband Richard abandoned her and their five children, and Mrs. Eaves became Baskerville's mistress and eventual helpmate with typesetting and printing. On the death of Mrs. Eaves estranged husband, she married John Baskerville within the month.

A lovely face. One usage I can think of is Radiohead, on the "Hail to the Thief" liner notes.

By: effwerd

effwerd — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:12:42 -0800

32/34, which I find embarrassing, actually, since this was too damn easy.

By: D.C.

D.C. — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:16:27 -0800

32, with two stupid mistakes.

By: Stewriffic

Stewriffic — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:26:31 -0800

OK, I have to say I'm pretty impressed that I got 19 of 34. The ones I knew for sure were Times New Roman, Wingdings, Comic Sans, Copperplate, Arial, Playbill, Old English, and maybe another one. Obvs I'm not a font hound. But that's fine.

By: three blind mice

three blind mice — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:29:19 -0800

1/34 I knew if I kept choosing Bell Centennial Std Address everytime I had the chance, I'd score at least one point.

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:37:36 -0800

Improperly weighted multiple choice. Always choosing the second option got me 12 out of 34.

By: Grod

Grod — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:58:10 -0800

28, I'm deeply ashamed.

By: aerotive

aerotive — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 08:04:09 -0800

16/34. Making it through half of the movie Helvetica didn't help much.

By: katillathehun

katillathehun — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 08:05:09 -0800

34/34 without even taking the quiz.

By: sciurus

sciurus — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 08:14:57 -0800

Hm, that wasn't very hard. The FAQ says it will get harder as time goes on. That's the trouble with the choices being automated.

By: grubi

grubi — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 08:16:42 -0800

26/34. My font-fu has weakened since leaving the world of graphic & web design.

By: Thorzdad

Thorzdad — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 08:31:57 -0800

29/34 I shall now burn all of my black mock-turtlenecks in shame.

By: aqhong

aqhong — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:23:14 -0800

Heh, I actually posted a score of 102/34 on this last night before I emailed the author and he closed a loophole that allowed to you to continue identifying samples and increasing your score even after "completing" the quiz. Legitimately: 34/34.

By: azpenguin

azpenguin — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:32:04 -0800

Got 30. Better than I thought, since our shop works around a small family of standard fonts, and I haven't seen some of these in forever.

By: bettafish

bettafish — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:41:01 -0800

21/34. Better than I expected, but my font-fu needs work!

By: heeeraldo

heeeraldo — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:09:02 -0800

a) 34/34. Got Arial versus Helvetica (and Bembo and Andale Mono) but nailed it anyway. b) to go further with boombot's explanation, Mrs. Eaves (the face) is an update of the original Baskerville by Zuzana Licko, who didn't want to name it Emigre Baskerville (as is the standard for reworkings of faces) because it was actually fairly different; thus the font was named after his eventual wife. More on Mrs. Eaves, direct from designer

By: wanderingmind

wanderingmind — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:38:41 -0800

32/34, which is a whole lot better than I expected. Lots of lucky guesses. Still, this was a fun little challenge.

By: Xoebe

Xoebe — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:54:34 -0800

25/34, better than I expected. I feel lucky that some of my favs were on there. No, not Comic Sans :P

By: [expletive deleted]

[expletive deleted] — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 11:52:57 -0800

Link is borked for me. Takes forever to load, and the samples stop loading after a few rounds. I was 6/6 when I gave up though. Why does it not surprise me that Etaoin Shrdlu got 34/34?

By: Monochrome

Monochrome — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:28:33 -0800

I missed more than one. If anyone can demonstrate the differences between Monaco and Andale Mono, I'd be eternally grateful.

By: TochterAusElysium

TochterAusElysium — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:10:56 -0800

32/34. But I did it without looking at the choices, just calling out font names. Stupid Andale.

By: aqhong

aqhong — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:09:35 -0800

If anyone can demonstrate the differences between Monaco and Andale Mono, I'd be eternally grateful. The most significant differences that I can see:

The lowercase a and g are double-story in Andale Mono, but single-story in Monaco.
The bowls of the lowercase b, d, p, and q are symmetrical on a horizontal axis in Andale Mono, but are irregularly shaped in Monaco.
The central vertex (or "crotch," if you will) of both the uppercase and lowercase W reaches the height of the endpoints in Monaco (that is, if divided into two Vs, each V is symmetrical), but not in Andale Mono.
Monaco features serifs on the uppercase J and lowercase r, and an additional serif (at the bottom) on the lowercase i.

Differences that are distinguishable only at large sizes:

The juncture of both the uppercase and lowercase K is symmetrical on a horizontal axis in Monaco, but not in Andale Mono.
The finials of curved letters (like c, e, and s) are sliced off by a perfectly vertical line in Monaco, but at an angle in Andale Mono.

By: aqhong

aqhong — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:28:53 -0800

Looks like the game was just updated with a handful of slightly more obscure fonts. Also, identification of numerals. Tricksy.

By: Phire

Phire — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:28:25 -0800

18. Clearly need more fonts. but they're so pretty, glee.