"font" I'd Rather you wouldn't
Interesting use of the word ’font’ by someone who should know better? Or perhaps using font instead of ’caption’ is acceptable in the world of TV news?
“Mr. Rather requests that his font not associate him with CBS News. So no ’Former CBS Anchor.’ We thank you and Dan thanks you.”
http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/article/now%20rather%20boots%20cbs_...
Si (and Dan) thank you.
10.Jul.2006 11.44am
Ah, there’s nothing like the cluelessness of the media...
10.Jul.2006 1.24pm
Maybe Dan meant he didn’t want his title set in Bodoni.
10.Jul.2006 2.04pm
“Maybe Dan meant he didn’t want his title set in Bodoni.”
I can’t resist editing your post just a bit to read:
Maybe Dan would rather his title not be set in Bodoni. :-)
ChrisL
“You’ll thank me later”
10.Jul.2006 2.46pm
Chris,
I thank you, Dan thanks you.
10.Jul.2006 3.03pm
Put this on your buisness card...
Chris Lozos: copy-editor to the typorati
10.Jul.2006 3.05pm
LOL!!!
And Monk thanks you :-)
ChrisL
12.Jul.2006 7.10am
The reference to ’font’ appears in this related story,
http://www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/entertainment/15016097.htm
“He and I haven’t talked about that. The world knows he’s a famous CBS person, but in terms of how we … font him on the screen, that hasn’t been decided yet,” Nathan said.
...and now we know who to complain to, Nancy Nathan is executive producer of the Chris Matthews show.
12.Jul.2006 7.22am
But what if he was fonted the same, but cased differently?
12.Jul.2006 7.59am
Any TV people here? I’m wondering if ’font’ has become a jargon term in that industry for the subtitles or IDs, based on the fact that they were created with font capabilities of the graphics tools used by tv stations.
12.Jul.2006 8.31pm
The timing was bad, I neglected to ask how I would be fonted when I was on local TV. Here’s how it turned out...
13.Jul.2006 4.36am
“Live from Si Daniels”
What is a Backyard sport”?
ChrisL
13.Jul.2006 6.37am
There’s a joke somewhere there about Scottish football:)
Tim
13.Jul.2006 6.45am
>What is a Backyard sport
Our local ABC affiliate KOMO4 TV run a sweepstakes each year where the winners have the Friday evening sportscast segment broadcast live from their back garden. I was one of the winners this summer, and the broadcast coincided with the eve of the England v Portugal match - so went with a World cup theme.
13.Jul.2006 7.23am
Bravo!
ChrisL
13.Jul.2006 9.50am
If I’m not mistaken, CBS uses a custom version of Didot called CBS Didot
13.Jul.2006 12.00pm
As a TV sort of guy, I should point out that the genesis of TV typography can be traced to “Candid Camera’s” Alan Font.
Sorry.... I couldn’t resist!
DK~
13.Jul.2006 12.42pm
Alan was my type of guy.
ChrisL
13.Jul.2006 1.09pm
What’s the frequency, Kenneth? Si has been fonted but is still incognitio. Let’s see the full screen!
13.Jul.2006 5.41pm
>Let’s see the full screen!
not intentional just a problem with the flash - there’s a pic here... http://typophile.com/node/21087
13.Jul.2006 5.41pm
16.Jul.2006 1.25am
I’m kind of late to this party, but Mr McCahill is right — to us TV types, the bit on the screen that identifies who’s talking is called a ’font’ or a ’super’ (for ’superimpose’).
Si, looks like a good time — just wish the result could have been better....
16.Jul.2006 2.09pm
Thanks Nick for solving the mystery. It’s interesting that after years of searching news articles for ’font’ references this one hadn’t come up before. We should add this definition to the wiki.
Cheers, Si
16.Jul.2006 3.46pm
You’re quite welcome! It’s behind-the-scenes jargon, and not frequently used (’super’ is far more common, from my experience), so I’m not all that surprised it hasn’t come up.
I added the definition to font, but feel free to clean it up and/or move it elsewhere.