Myford fonts

[egaParticipant @ega]

Myfords employed a distinctive italic font (or, perhaps typeface) for their company name/logo and a rather plain sans serif font for eg the speed and thread charts on the Super 7.

I am designing a reminder notice to go on the gear cover to alert me to the state of the gears – feeds, threads, or non-standard stud gear – and should like to use the "correct" font. Has anyone, by some remote chance, identified the sans serif font, please?

[egaParticipant @ega]

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

No … but I’m game to try !

[ the challenge is more entertaining than some of the other options ]

… Engaging Lawrence Oates mode: I may be some time !

MichaelG.

[David JuppParticipant @davidjupp51506]

There are at least a couple of web sites that claim to be able to identify font from an uploaded image… might be worth trying. I just searched 'identify font from image'.

[egaParticipant @ega]

MichaelG:

I should value your input but see below as I don't want to send you out into the storm for no good reason!

David Jupp:

Thank you for your helpful suggestion. I have yet to find that distinctive "M" in the Myford logo but Highway Gothic Regular is suggested for the upper case font on the thread chart.

[egaParticipant @ega]

PS I am no typographer but looking at the logo I think that it cannot have been constructed from a font (ie comprehensive set of letters, numbers, etc) but that it is in fact a single design.

Myford fanciers will know that the firm also employed a trademark depicting an early lathe within two concentric circles and they seem to have been fairly design-conscious.

[Nick Clarke 3Participant @nickclarke3]

Sorry ega – took too long mumbling on!

I don't think it is a font I'm afraid, but rather a logo drawn by a commercial artist and then used for either blockmaking or possibly photo typesetting (but that is a bit modern for the logo dates)

Reasons for thinking this – Firstly the date of introduction of the logo means we are into blocks for headlines or metal type – and I doubt any printer would have a fount this distinctive – and if they did it would appear in loads of other places as well – it would be too expensive to keep for one company only. The idea of a print user having access to different typefaces and type heights themselves is one from the 1980's – before that you would use what your printer had in stock, or have a block made.

Second more technical reason for suggesting it is a hand drawn logo is the letters f o r d in myford. I am unaware of any software that will allow four letters to overlap like these do, two yes, but not four with the wing to the rear of r overlapping the o and the upper arm overlapping the d. Similarly the f overlaps the o. In metal type these would need to be cast as a single item of type, again unlikely in a fount that is available commercially.

I suggest scanning or photographing the logo and using it that way. If you wish use a graphics too to convert from raster to vector, but I really wouldn't bother myself.

Edited By Nick Clarke 3 on 23/04/2020 17:57:38

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

I’ve just come back into the house [so have made no progress, as yet] … but I’m already confused

Are we searching for the “rather plain sans serif font” as per the opening question … or the Myford ‘logo’ to which the discussion has turned ?

MichaelG.

[Nick Clarke 3Participant @nickclarke3]

Michael – was responding to the PS, not the original question.

ega – If Highway Gothic is a good match,then go for it, but I doubt it was the original font as it was designed in the US for roadsigns. To match a font look I always start by looking at the lower case a, upper and lower q and lower case g as these are the letter forms or glyphs that show the most variation.

[Peter HallParticipant @peterhall61789]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 23/04/2020 15:13:55:

… Engaging Lawrence Oates mode: I may be some time !

MichaelG.

Noooooo!!! Please come back. I enjoy your posts.

Pete

[egaParticipant @ega]

Nick Clarke 3:

Your detailed and informed comments confirm what I thought about the logo ie the single word "Myford"; the more one looks at it the more of a piece it seems.

My principal interest is in the "body text" as it were ie what I called the plain sans serif font (I realise it pre-dates the advent of the modern digital font).

I'll have another look at HG in light of your comments; obviously there can be no direct comparison but I thought it would be good to produce something in keeping with the rest of the lathe.

MichaelG:

As I say, I think any searching would be for the sans serif font and if you can point to a better alternative then please do.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Nick Clarke 3 on 23/04/2020 18:59:30:

Michael – was responding to the PS, not the original question.

.

MichaelG.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by ega on 23/04/2020 21:52:46:

[…]

MichaelG:

As I say, I think any searching would be for the sans serif font and if you can point to a better alternative then please do.

.

This may be trickier than I anticipated … One of the many ‘identifiers’ is the shape of the upper case M, and I have already found two sans-serif variants that were in use by Myford.

As a sanity-check … could you please confirm [or deny] that the font used on this “classic” plate is the one you are seeking: **LINK**

https://www.myford.co.uk/acatalog/CLASSIC-MYFORD-SPEED-PLATE-FOR-SUPER-7—ML7-NAME15.html

Time for bed, now … but I will be on the case tomorrow

MichaelG.

[egaParticipant @ega]

MichaelG:

Yes, the font in the speed plate you linked to would be fine.

I actually did my image search against the gearbox plate image from the manual but, on reflection,, I think the speed plate is a better bet.

Purely incidentally, a look at the archive photos on that site suggests that the "curly" Myford logo came into use around 1954.

Sleep well!

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

There are two typefaces on the speed plate, as well as the probably custom-designed Myford logo itself. The "NOTTINGHAM ENGLAND" is a different typeface from the speed data below. Probably from a standard logo incorporated with the main Myford logo.

Highway Gothic looks close enough to get away with. (But then again so would one of the Arial family) There are countless variations of Gothic typeface so who knows which they originally used? Even in Highway Gothic there are several versions. The one on the plate, whatever it was originally, looks like a condensed, aka compressed, typeface as often used on signs and newspaper headlines where fitting maximum letters into a short space is paramount.

Gothic and Helvetica were the most popular sans serif typefaces for much of the 20th Century so probably one of the plethora of variations on those. But most versions have the wrong letter G to match so that narrows it down to several hundreds!

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

… and my nomination is:

Berthold Grotesk

This was created in 1928, and should therefore have been available to Myford

and it is the ancestor of many generally similar sans serif-fonts

See here: **LINK**

https://www.fontshop.com/content/short-intro-to-geometric-sans

To be confident; we would need to see more of the character set on examples from Myford … but I think it’s pretty close [except that Myford’s replica plate doesn’t have ‘a little serif’ on the 7]

MichaelG

.

[egaParticipant @ega]

MichaelG:

That must have come to you during the night! Many thanks for your trouble and I will pursue the suggestion.

The frequent use of the word "foundry" reminds me that there is a very prominent cast-in "MYFORD" on the headstock where I notice that the crotch of the M does descend to the baseline (cf the description of BG in your link). I suppose that the constraints and design criteria are different here.

Hopper:

Yes, I think I had noticed that the cross bars in the Es were of different length. I was initially just hoping to find a suitable font in LibreOffice and then began to want to look beneath the surface.

It's a shame that there are probably no grey beards left from the Myford design office to comment.

[Nick Clarke 3Participant @nickclarke3]

Looking at the Myford plate this was originally all hand drawn so you are looking not for the font it was created in, but rather a font that matches the artist's work.

The reasons that take me to this conclusion are:

The two Es in SPEEDS are different shapes – the middle bar is shorter in the first one and shorter again in SPINDLE

The shape of the D in SPEEDS is very different to that in GEARED and UNGEARED

The two Ss in SPEEDS are different – the tail of the first one curls up more.

You need to find a modern font that approximates to the writing – I think that is as good as it will get. Michael's suggestion is very close – The deciding factor I suspect may be the bowl of the letter R (the upper loop) which quite unusually extends past the lower 'leg'. Gill Sans, Futura and Helvetica my goto geometric fonts are quite the opposite.

[blowlampParticipant @blowlamp]

Because there aren't many words to do, I think an easy solution would be to trace the letters of the plate in a CAD app. From there, it's easy to copy & place as required.

For the numbers, I'm sure something near enough could be found to do the job, maybe already installed on your computer.

Martin.

[egaParticipant @ega]

blowlamp:

For my reminder device I am thinking of something along the lines of the Shetack circular thread chart or the thing you use to communicate your desires to the milkman. The rotatable plate with the text would be the filling of the sandwich and the outer plate would have a window to reveal the appropriate reminder message.

I did think about specifying the non-standard gears by number but am more likely to go for something simpler such as: "FEEDS" – "THREADS" – "SPECIAL"; when the last reminder is selected it will just take a moment to open the gear cover and note the state (I am not "blessed" with the later security fastenings that Myfords adopted).

Edited to make reminder text all upper case.

Edited By ega on 24/04/2020 12:01:02

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