Parade Sample

James Gareth
28.Sep.2003 4.41pm
James Gareth's picture

Hello,

Wondering if you guys spot recognize this font. I think it's gorgeous but running it through what the font yielded no results. I hope it's not custom. I'd really appreciate any help you can offer.

It's from the current Parade magazine.

It looks a lot like Berkeley Oldstyle.

Brandon


Thanks Brandon. It does look that way. Your help was much appreciated. The strange thing is I bought Berkely Oldstyle many years ago. I don't know why it looked so unfamiliar. Thanks Again!


It's got the right g and e, but other letters are wrong, like the u and y. I think this could be a possible hybrid with a few Berkeley Old Style letters mixed in with something else like "Spectrum". I looked at other Goudy designs, and "Deepdene" is closer in many respects, but not exactly right either.


Wow! In my euphoria, the details escaped me. Good eyes, both of you! I think Birka is a better fit. Would I be premature in thanking you again?


I used www.identifont.com. The ones who usually post here can get it from a fragment, which I am awestruck by.

I was interested in this sample because it has the slanted e, but has a different feel from Goudy's faces or from Jenson. On the linotype site, the designer says his influence was Garamond...


Another thing I find remarkable is that ITC Berkeley Oldstyle and Birka look so similar (the lowercase es the uppercase Fs) but don't share any cross influence, at least not according to the designer. He says he designed Birka from stratch, and like William mentioned, his influence was Garamond, and it took him over a year to draw. ITC Berekeley was derived from Goudy's design of Californian, which is an immediately recognizable influence. Things that make you go Hmmmmm ... :-)


To me, Birka and Berkeley Old Style are significantly different. Even though the designer of Berkeley Old Style made it less ideosyncractic than its source, it still is stamped with the Goudy style. (I actually like it better as a text face than Californian FB, which is truer to Goudy's California Old Style). Birka doesn't have the Goudy feel. If you look at the handling of the serifs and the thick-thin transitions, I think you will see the difference.


It has been my observation, and it's just my personal feeling, that many of Franko Luin's designs seem to have other inspirations. Some of them might be improvements, but I can't help from having the feeling that in general they are the sort of copies that metal type foundries often used to make so that they could offer a similar design to that of their competitors. I admit I haven't studied this too closely, in his case, but I have often looked at one of his designs when I thought it was similar to something else I knew. One reason this impression is enhanced is the large number of his designs, and the strange fact that you don't hear his name mentioned when foremost type designers are being discussed. The other reason is that the more original they look (to me), the less attractive they are. I know there are many ways you can explain this very subjective observation, so maybe you should just say I'm not a huge Franko Luin fan.


Hmm. Luin has done his 'Classico' versions of Caslon, Garamond, etc. I wonder also what others think of these vs rivals, if anyone has studied them.

The Birka does have elegance, at least at display size. I don't know if I have seen it as a text type - where Berkeley I have seen being used very nicely.


In music artists use the same smoke-screen technique:
early dEUS songs are clearly "inspired by" (to put it
mildly) Captain Beefheart and contain literal portions
of Zappa tunes for example, but they named people
like Leonard Cohen as their primary influence in order
to divert the attention from the real sources. But you
can't fool the ear (or in this case the eye).


I must admit that I didn't check, William, I was just
expanding on James' remark. I'll take a closer look
before I comment any further.