# Check Typeface

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-typeface/409904>\
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\
**Created:** [June 29, 2007, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-typeface/409904 "2007-06-29T13:17:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![paulsmedberg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e47774/32.png) [@paulsmedberg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paulsmedberg)\
**Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-typeface/409904/1 "2007-06-29T13:17:05Z")

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As a sometimes type designer I was very interested in your ignorance fighting:  
Why do banks use that awful robotic looking type font for routing and account numbers?  
[http://www.straightdope.com/columns/070629.html](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/070629.html)

Type designers usually work in total anonymity, but for every typeface, there’s a person (or persons) who designed it.

Stanford Research Institute (SRI) was the institution. Do you or anybody know the name of the human that designed the MICR typeface?

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**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\
**Post date:** [June 29, 2007, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-typeface/409904/2 "2007-06-29T20:50:25Z")

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Hello Paul.

I helped Cecil out looking up some items from the IEEE when he wanted to explore in detail all possible avenues for the origin of the font. We were unable to find with 100% certainty the person(s) who designed that specific font, but we do know that a man named J. Peter Lazarus was technical lead, and he used what was described as a “multi-gap system” to simulate the fonts under consideration for the committee with something called “ANEBA” hardware. I have no idea what ANEBA hardware is, but Cecil probably does…

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**Author:** ![Jubilant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ce7236/32.png) [@Jubilant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jubilant)\
**Post date:** [July 4, 2007, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/check-typeface/409904/3 "2007-07-04T22:30:35Z")

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I’ve worked on typefaces a lot, since the sixties, on Teletypes and other pre-PC equipment. No font starts from scratch. You think you have completely modified a font, front to back, serif to kern, and you find, stepping back, that you can’t tell it from the original. When you find the author, check his notes and there will be a similar font of someone else’s that it was based on. Yet he will be entitled to full credit. A paradox.