Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/06/17/is-this-the-quake-font.html
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I’m shocked fontphiles didn’t figure this out years ago. It looks derivative at the least.
I could buy someone monkeying around with Avia, but I am not convinced that they would then include that M (which does not seem to come from Avia – none of the specimen sheets available show it as an alternate character).
Okay, so Visa and Avia are the same thing? And the Quake font is similar to some of Avia, but also in some cases matches that used on a old logo, font unknown. So it’s either based on an unknown font, or a combination of the unknown font and Avia. The comparison letters up top don’t always match the Avia poster below (the “M” in particular), but this other, unknown font. And it’s been modified beyond that… no wonder it wasn’t obvious.
But fonts, by their nature, are derivative of other fonts, and in this case he’s not saying it’s derived from Avia, but possibly a font from which Avia was derived, or a font derived from Avia. Or not. So not surprised no one made the connection. (The actual source font might not have been in use for over 40 years when Quake got made.)
Yeah, if you hunt down the original post, he makes it clear he’s not claiming Avia as the source font, but something related, as it actual resembles the font used in this logo:
But that font is similar, in many ways, to Avia, and seems to have some relationship to it. (But we also don’t have a full specimen sheet for it, but we do for Avia.)
Thanks for clarifying, I do not believe that the M or N are parts of the same typeface as the rest of the Schott logo. I don’t have my Rookledge with me (and M and N aren’t ideal identifier characters) but those are significant deviations from the design of the other characters.
Yeah, however the Schott logo was assembled (out of multiple fonts, presumably), it seems to me that the Quake font was derived from it - it has the inconsistent M and N, and a lot of the letters really don’t match Avia (the E, R, and so on), which makes me think someone came up with the Quake font inspired by the (inconsistent) Schott logo, and then extrapolated all the letters not in that text. So you get the S, C, H, O, T, I, D and L from Avia, the M and N from whatever, and the rest are extrapolated/invented.
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