Does anyone know the official name for the Lisa's display font? (It appears to be the same one used in early Macintosh development).
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Lisa Display Font
- Thread starter Scott Baret
- Start date
Screenshots?
Sure:
http://www.digibarn.com/collections/systems/apple-lisa2xl/apple_lisa_screenshot.gif
The font in question is the one on the menus and title bars.
I guess the one on the early Mac is a little different upon a second look, but here's the shot from the Folklore site:
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Steve,_Icon.txt&topic=MacPaint&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=medium
Again, the font in question is in use on menus and title bars. I think I actually prefer this one to the Lisa font, but they're both pretty neat.
http://www.digibarn.com/collections/systems/apple-lisa2xl/apple_lisa_screenshot.gif
The font in question is the one on the menus and title bars.
I guess the one on the early Mac is a little different upon a second look, but here's the shot from the Folklore site:
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Steve,_Icon.txt&topic=MacPaint&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=medium
Again, the font in question is in use on menus and title bars. I think I actually prefer this one to the Lisa font, but they're both pretty neat.
I'm pretty sure that the font used for menus and window titles on the Lisa is modern bold 12 pt. The Lisa had two standard fonts, modern and classic. Modern was sans serif.
Sweet, thanks for the link to the TrueType fonts. (I'm a retro-font junkie and they will undoubtedly be just as useful to have around as the Atari 2600-era box fonts collection.)
I'm a font junky, too. 
I presume you know about all the "Mac font" pages on the wiki (e.g. [wiki]Category:Typefaces[/wiki])? A pet project of mine…
I believe this is the largest single collection of "classic Mac font" recreations. Six at once! Until I was alerted to this, almost all of the existing ones were onesy-twosy affairs.
I presume you know about all the "Mac font" pages on the wiki (e.g. [wiki]Category:Typefaces[/wiki])? A pet project of mine…I believe this is the largest single collection of "classic Mac font" recreations. Six at once! Until I was alerted to this, almost all of the existing ones were onesy-twosy affairs.
This is a must-have set of fonts for anyone who values the classic Macs and their typography. We've had St. Francis for a long time as a SanFran substitution, but the rest of these are either new or greatly improved over other TrueType versions of the old fonts. The Venice interpretation (Valencia) is especially good, as most of the TrueType Venice fonts I've seen haven't been up to par. (This is the best non-Apple Venice I've seen since Cliff Joyce drew several fixed sizes as part of World Class Fonts). It's also nice to have Los Angeles in TrueType form (Los Altos), as I like this type of font for study guides (typically use them when I want to simulate handwriting).
The only one I've tried printing so far is ParcPlace, and it looks great. If only OS X allowed for more customization--it would be one great system font.
The only one I've tried printing so far is ParcPlace, and it looks great. If only OS X allowed for more customization--it would be one great system font.
Scott B, thanks for your comments. I'd really like to review all the versions of the city fonts we have now and decide which is "the best" of each.
There was a (bitmap?) font I used back in the 7-8 days for icon names that, IIRC, was called Palermo. It was upright and fairly narrow, had a slight script feel to it, with nice descenders on some letters. Anybody know what I'm talking about? Googling has consistently found two faces called Palermo, a serif and a decorative, but neither one is what I remember.
There was a (bitmap?) font I used back in the 7-8 days for icon names that, IIRC, was called Palermo. It was upright and fairly narrow, had a slight script feel to it, with nice descenders on some letters. Anybody know what I'm talking about? Googling has consistently found two faces called Palermo, a serif and a decorative, but neither one is what I remember.
CT, do you remember if the font was included in any sort of collection, perhaps a public domain CD? I can't say I've heard of the font but will be on the lookout--may have to get my old BMUG Macintosh Revelations CD out to see if it's on there.
I found another TT Los Angeles called City of Angels was posted to our forum some time ago, but the link to it no longer works. I think I have this one on my old MacBook, so I'll have to run it next to our new version. Also, it seems you were working on a TT Toronto--how's the project coming along?
I found another TT Los Angeles called City of Angels was posted to our forum some time ago, but the link to it no longer works. I think I have this one on my old MacBook, so I'll have to run it next to our new version. Also, it seems you were working on a TT Toronto--how's the project coming along?
Scott, you are asking about the Palermo I mentioned? I don't know where it came from. It was one of those things that got passed around the college dorm, I guess.
Regarding my Toronto clone, I've had to cut myself off from designing characters and settle down to the hard work of fixing the spacing and kerning. If I didn't, I'd probably never finish because I have so much fun creating glyphs for every symbol and dingbat possible.
Over 1300 characters right now. 8-o It's been a great learning experience, and the results look pretty good, IMHO. I've taken a bit of a break from it because the Aleph One guys needed a free font to distribute with their project, so I cranked on that, and need a little rest before I dive back in.
FYI, City of Angels is stored on our wiki, too—see the [wiki]Los Angeles[/wiki] page.
Regarding my Toronto clone, I've had to cut myself off from designing characters and settle down to the hard work of fixing the spacing and kerning. If I didn't, I'd probably never finish because I have so much fun creating glyphs for every symbol and dingbat possible.
Over 1300 characters right now. 8-o It's been a great learning experience, and the results look pretty good, IMHO. I've taken a bit of a break from it because the Aleph One guys needed a free font to distribute with their project, so I cranked on that, and need a little rest before I dive back in.FYI, City of Angels is stored on our wiki, too—see the [wiki]Los Angeles[/wiki] page.
Back to the OP's question, the Lisa system font didn't really have a name. Internally it was just known as SYSFONT.
The Lisa actually had about a dozen fonts, but the only user-selectable ones were Modern and Classic, which were internally known as HELV and CENTURY. And almost the entire interface was actually pieced together using the other fonts.
If you back up one level on the link to the Urban Renewal fonts, you can find TrueType versions of the Apple Lisa fonts as well. The TrueType conversion of the system font is called Twiggy. (These fonts retain the jaggies of the original bitmaps, unlike the Urban Renewal fonts.)
The Lisa actually had about a dozen fonts, but the only user-selectable ones were Modern and Classic, which were internally known as HELV and CENTURY. And almost the entire interface was actually pieced together using the other fonts.
If you back up one level on the link to the Urban Renewal fonts, you can find TrueType versions of the Apple Lisa fonts as well. The TrueType conversion of the system font is called Twiggy.
(These fonts retain the jaggies of the original bitmaps, unlike the Urban Renewal fonts.)
