How Do You Identify Fonts?
We have a fairly active Type & Fonts folder in the forum. The bulk of the postings are from members seeking identification of specific fonts. They may need them to recreate some letterhead or a logo or just because they like the look and want to use the font in some project but don't know the name. We have some regulars who frequently offer help and I do so as well from time to time. This past week or so I've been posting quite a few font identifications. But it's not always an easy task.
If you're a font fanatic, have a good eye for fonts, or like the detective work involved you are more than welcome to pop in there and give it a shot. Whether it's for others or for your own use, I'd like to hear about how you go about identifying unknown fonts.
I have the best success using the font identification engine known as WhatTheFont. It's not 100% accurate all the time but I tend to get good results. The trick to using WhatTheFont is having a good, clear image (and a font that's in their database). I'll often take the images posted by forum members and do a little clean up in my graphics software -- separating letters that are too close together, increasing contrast or converting to black & white, and perhaps resizing small images (sometimes it works, sometimes not). It can be a tedious process and there's no guarantee of success.
I seem to have less luck with Identifont. Sometimes I'll get a hit but not often. Rather than uploading an image, with Identifont you answer a series of questions about the font you are trying to identify. If you only have a few letters to work with (which is often the case) you can limit the questions to those letters. Don't know if it's the questions or the way I answer the questions but the results I get are usually quite a mixed bag.
There are other ways to identify fonts, including searching through lists of fonts that are organized by types such as serif, sans serif, etc. Time-consuming but sometimes the only way to get a hit. How about you? Do you use WhatTheFont, Identifont, or some other resources? Any tips or tricks to share?
Whatthefont breaks apart letters like i in two parts. Some others too with thin strokes. Is there a way to get it to recognize two part letters as one? Other than that it works good for me on the few times I use it.
I know what you mean, Ted, about i and other letters with dots or accents. I don’t know a way around it. It’s not very good with connected letters like some scripts either. All in all it works good if you have a clear graphic image with individual letters not set close together but certain fonts or particular letters do cause problems. I haven’t poked around the site lately to see if there is a FAQ or something that addresses that. Guess I need to do that.
Regarding WhatTheFont and letters like i and j – when it separates the dot from the rest of the letter, you can now drag one part over the other, and it’ll “join” them into the full letter. (Caveat – at least, I find I can do that on my Mac, anyway!)
Like you, I’ve had pretty good results from WhatTheFont, but it does depend on the quality of the original, and whether the font is in its database. I’ve also had a few successes with Identifont, but not many – again, it’s down to which fonts are in its database (if it doesn’t know about Fontin Sans Bold, it can’t tell you your font is Fontin Sans Bold!).
For fonts which are likely to be shareware or freeware (and therefore unlikely to be included in the above databases) I use a couple of other sites, like dafont.com – they’ve divided their font collection into categories, like Fancy, Basic, Gothic and Script, with each broken down into sub-categories like Western, Retro, Eroded, Graffiti and so on. They have a preview function, especially useful if you’re trying to match certain characters – just type them in, and MOST (not all) of their fonts will be displayed using only those characters. After that it’s just the grunt work of scrolling through perhaps a few hundred fonts, looking for one that matches. Sometimes you may have to try two or more of the categories, depending on how they may have “filed” the font.
One very useful tool is, unfortunately, one I can’t share with others – memory. After a while there are some fonts you just recognise instantly – my own “database” stretches from some of the classics like Gill, Frutiger, Palatino and such to some of the more whacky fonts, like Klee CapScript and FontDinerDotCom.
Dave: “you can now drag one part over the other, and it’ll “join” them into the full letter.” Cool. I will have to try that out and see if works for Windows. Could be browser-specific too (I love Google Chrome but there are some things it just doesn’t support well at all).
Re: Memory. My memory works sort of like “I know that font. I know that I know that font… And then someone says, ‘It’s such-and-such font.’ And I go, of course. I KNEW it. Really, I knew it. Just couldn’t put a name to it.” Not the best kind of memory for identifying fonts. Thus I have to depend on lists and databases and such.
Hi, Jacci
It works with Firefox and Safari, at least. Can’t test it in Chrome (not sure if it’s available for Macs, even if it is I don’t have it) or IE (no such thing for Macs). If it makes a difference, it’s the beta myfonts site, i.e. http://new.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/ – it looks like the same facility should be available on the old site too, but I just tried it in Safari and ended up with an error message.