I believe that’s Font Bureau’s Giza.

H&FJ ZIGGURAT

http://typography.com/testDriver/index.php?mode=characters&productLineID...

one of my favorites *swoon.* the amc channel uses it too.

Awesome. thanks a bunch!

Quick question...

It seems to be Ziggurat as you stated Chipman, but i’m trying to figure out how two different foundries can have two typefaces that are really really similar. Of course I am saying that because I am a novice typophile. I can stroll by a sign and tell the difference between Helvetica/Univers/Akzidenz-Grotesk, but is it not wrong to say that Giza and Ziggurat are damn close to each other?

Anyway, thanks again, you guys always answer back quick.

OH YEAH! I was just accepted to Art Center in Pasadena last week too, yay, i’m excited!

Both typefaces have a common source - Egyptian types from the early 1800s - so it would make sense that they look very close.

The difference is that Ziggurat was intended to work with its brothers, Leviathan, Acropolis, and Saracen so you can get different flavours with the same skeleton.

- Lex

P.S. Mmm... skeletons.

P.P.S. Congrats on the Pasadena gig.

Correct me if I’m wrong, wasn’t the proteus project (those four from lex) designed originally for rolling stone? It’s a huge time-saver for production without having to sacrifice æsthetics.

From Wikipedia:
A ziggurat (Akkadian ziqqurrat, D-stem of zaqāru “to build on a raised area”) was a temple tower of the ancient Mesopotamian valley and Iran, having the form of a terraced pyramid of successively receding stories or levels.

We all know the great pyramids are in Giza, so even the names are in the same family.

There are other similarly close typefaces, some probably closer than Giza and Ziggurat. Next time you can, you should overlay Swiss 721 on top of Helvetica. If you look through the threads, you’ll find a lot on the subject, and how vague intellectual property gets.