Routed Gothic Font

hlieberman 6 years ago |

For a newer font in this vein, I'd look at B612, a font designed in cooperation with Airbus specifically for visibility inside cockpits: https://github.com/polarsys/b612/blob/master/docs/B612-Leafl...

cyphar 6 years ago | |

I'm also quite surprised that the symbols for "O" (capital O) and "0" (zero) are very similar, even in the monospace version of B612.

randomcarbloke 6 years ago | | |

Cyphar, two years ago you posted:

"Well, there is a port of glibc to UEFI, so one could very easily "boot into Emacs". Strangely I've not seen anyone do this."

Can you hook me up with that link :) Cheers.

FullyFunctional 6 years ago | | |

Very off-topic but hilarious.

Back to topic: inability to distinguish O and 0 seems pretty terrifying for avionics. Related, I love SF Mono, but it's so hard to read 0000080 in small fonts (try it).

randomcarbloke 6 years ago | | |

Yeah, very off topic, terribly sorry. My brain won't let me write 0's without strikethrough anymore.

userbinator 6 years ago | |

...and for an older font, look at Futura and its variants --- whose users in aerospace included Boeing and NASA.

mhd 6 years ago | | |

And which might be known for a few as the main body font of the AD&D first edition books -- not the best use case for it.

Igelau 6 years ago | |

Too bad the () and the [] look so much alike in the monospaced version.

ginko 6 years ago |

Sort of related, there's DIN 6776, a German standardized font used for technical drawings:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normschrift

https://www.typografie.info/3/uploads/99b804cee64ef8c64ad900...

I had to learn that one in drafting class in middle school.

app4soft 6 years ago | |

DIN standards are local derivatives of ISO standards.

There are few widely used "Technical lettering"[0] standards: «ISO 3098»(EU/International), «ASME Y14.5»(US) and «GOST 2.304»(ex-USSR).

There are few FLOSS fonts which cover «ISO 3098»[1,2,3], «ASME Y14.5»[3,4,5] and «GOST 2.304»[6,7,8] technical lettering standards.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_lettering

[1] https://github.com/hikikomori82/osifont

[2] http://peter-wiegel.de/TGL.html

[3] http://peter-wiegel.de/TGL_0-16.html

[4] https://www.fontspace.com/micronus

[5] https://cstools.asme.org/csconnect/CommitteePages.cfm?Commit...

[6] https://bitbucket.org/fat_angel/opengostfont/

[7] https://github.com/Metrolog/Font.GOST2.304-81

[8] https://github.com/MishkinIN/Font_GOST_2.304

ginko 6 years ago | | |

Seems like ISO 3098 is significantly newer than DIN 6776, so it's the ISO standard that's derivative of the DIN one.

app4soft 6 years ago | | |

Well, you are partially right, because most of "DIN" standards already replaced by "ISO".

But there are still many "DIN" standards that now replaced by "DIN EN ISO", e.g. German (local) version of «ISO 3098» (which replace «DIN 6776») is «DIN EN ISO 3098».[0]

[0] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_DIN_standards#DIN_6000_to_DIN_6999

exmadscientist 6 years ago |

Thank you for posting this! I've been looking off and on for this for ages and ages.

Trivial factoid: my understanding is that the Gorton pantograph fonts came first, and that the Leroy lettering sets were manufactured using the Gorton fonts. But I don't have a good source for that, so I could be completely wrong.

rjsw 6 years ago | |

I had not heard of those brands, I had Rotring [1] lettering stencils to match some of their pens.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotring

jccalhoun 6 years ago |

If people aren’t familiar with the Leroy Lettering system here is a video of it: https://youtu.be/GZRvQDMBEOE

This font was also used by EC Comics (their comics included Tales From the Crypt). Here is another font based on that which is more fuzzy: https://caseyburns.com/artwork/font-design/

_jal 6 years ago |

I'm pleased to see he implemented the vital U+1F4A9 code point.

dickeytk 6 years ago | |

[bottom of https://webonastick.com/fonts/routed-gothic/unicode-coverage...]

shmageggy 6 years ago | | |

Ah, a mainstay of technical drawings and engraved office signs.

samplatt 6 years ago | | |

Certainly required in the description of the accuracy of many of them.

cogburnd02 6 years ago | |

Now it needs U+0CA0....

https://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/0ca0/index.htm

etaioinshrdlu 6 years ago |

I learned to write in this style by hand in an engineering graphics / drafting class in college.

I too find the high concentration of upper case fonts, especially Courier New, in engineering and especially EE, to be kind of relaxing and pretty.

qwerty456127 6 years ago |

It's not ugly, it's beautiful.

gelo 6 years ago |

It may be the size on the page, or glyph rendering artefact but this font doesnt look... consistent. Dont get me wrong the font is brilliant, however atleast for me there are some points at which the rendered glyphs are over cut. Another way id describe this is the antialiasing is not consistent. Its like layering the same text on top of the other multiple times.

Sharlin 6 years ago | |

The author mentions that there’s no hinting, which may explain what you’re seeing.

reaperducer 6 years ago |

Wow, this is triggering some kind of memory cascade in the back of my brain that I simply cannot place. I know this font, but I really can't say from where.

The closest guesses I can come up with is the Commodore 64 Programmers Reference Guide, or maybe an old terminal or computer magazine. But I could easily be wrong.

Either way, I love it.

aaronharder 6 years ago | |

Perhaps Forrest Mims of Radio Shack Engineer's Notebook fame?

https://hackaday.com/2017/01/18/forrest-mims-radio-shack-and...

reaperducer 6 years ago | | |

Wow. I think that might be it!

blattimwind 6 years ago | |

This kind of writing seems to be the equivalent of Normschrift in the US; it's all over schematics from the 60s and 70s (sometimes even the 80s). Just like Normschrift written by craftsmen it looks super-regular, almost like computer set type, except it has tiny variations between draftsmen, making it clear it is actually written by hand. (Some people use templates to write Normschrift; a looked down upon practice, generally not permissible in exams).

bitwize 6 years ago | |

To me it looks like the Simplex font from AutoCAD (which I believe was based on a selection of characters from Hershey).

chewxy 6 years ago |

I like how under unicode coverage, the one emoji that is covered is the poop emoji. Human universals I guess.

Dramatize 6 years ago |

I love the feel of this font.

uasm 6 years ago |

> "I created this font by purchasing a Leroy Lettering set, using Inkscape to trace the scanned letterforms of one of its templates, and some FontForge Python scripting."

How does this work from a copyright/legal perspective?

bruckie 6 years ago | |

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protecti...: "Typefaces cannot be protected by copyright in the United States". (Note that fonts--e.g. a .ttf or .otf file--can, though.)

Other jurisdictions do provide protection for the abstract shapes represented by typefaces.

runxel 6 years ago | |

Guess why so many Helvetica impersonations/clones exist:

The thing is called "tracing" and quite common.

The actual code (which means the ttf/otf) is protected under copyright. The shape of a letter isn't and can't be by any form of IP.

So: You're not allowed to redistribute the font file but creating your own font which just happens to look alike is perfectly fine.

md5person 6 years ago | | |

Thanks.

So, a given "specification" (how a font looks to the human eye) can have many different "implementations" (ie. TTF files). The specific "implementations" themselves can be copyrighted, but somehow not the "specifications"?

If so... assume one TTF file which is copyrighted, pay-per-use license. Assume another TTF file, which is open-source, free to use and redistribute. The files both implement the "Helvetica" specification, rendering the same letters to the human eye. How "different" must the free implementation be from the paid one, for it to not be considered an infringement?

runxel 6 years ago | | |

Since the shapes afaik can't be copyrighted: Your selfdrawn font has totally the right to look the same.

They probably won't however, since you might be able to copy the shape, but for being displayed on screen you need a process called "hinting". That is the term for making pixels out of the shapes. Professional fonts are hinted by hand, making it look neat even in small sizes. There is auto-hinting, but it only gets you so far.

sgt 6 years ago |

This is pretty much the same as Comic Sans, except Comic Sans is a bit more curvy and fun. Routed Gothic is what Comic Sans should have been.

Pinus 6 years ago | |

You should check out Comic Neue. http://comicneue.com/

Waterluvian 6 years ago |

Related to this one, has anyone identified an equivalent font for what was used in the Apollo CSM and LM cockpits?

urxvtcd 6 years ago | |

Wasn't this just Futura?

Waterluvian 6 years ago | | |

Oh hey it might have been. I dunno how I missed that. Thanks!

kccqzy 6 years ago |

Why does it implement just a few of the superscripts, but not all?

maxerickson 6 years ago | |

1, 2 and 3 are in the Latin 1 block, 0,4-9 are at U+2070-U+2079.

masswerk 6 years ago |

I've been on the look for this for a long time. Thanks!

Gracana 6 years ago |

KiCAD 6's font support can't come soon enough!

dim13 6 years ago |

Would love it in monospace variant.

cellular 6 years ago |

Brick Hect would be proud.

microcolonel 6 years ago |

An OpenType tabular numbers feature would be a nice addition, for numbers in tables. I think it would mostly be a matter of adding a hook to the 1 like other similarly-proportioned industrial fonts.