# Should I Make This Font?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-make-this-font/147133
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 7, 2003, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-make-this-font/147133 "2003-01-07T10:41:18Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2003, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-make-this-font/147133/1 "2003-01-07T10:41:18Z")
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- I have an old rubber stamp kit. The label inside the case says “Excelsior Sign and Price Marker”, and there is still an Excelsior font sold by Linotype (as far as I can detirmine). I cannot find any reference to who made the original wooden stamping kit (no company name is given, it just says "made in USA down the left edge of the label). The fonts I would create are from weathered and somewhat deteriorated stamps anyway, so it’s not likely they’ll be mistaken for the current professional-level product. The font would be _freeware_, posted to free font sites.
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All the letters upper and lower case are present, the “3” and a couple of the symbols visible in the label illustration are missing, but some have been stamped on the inside of the lid, so I could recover something to use in their place.
Pictures are available here:
[http://www.norcom2000.com/users/dcimper/stamp\_set/stamp\_set.html](http://www.norcom2000.com/users/dcimper/stamp_set/stamp_set.html)
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### Author:  [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2003, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-make-this-font/147133/2 "2003-01-07T11:24:58Z")
What’s the GQ here? I’m not trying to be a driveby mod, I’m just curious. Are you asking if it is legal for you to make this font or are you asking us if we think you’re wasting your time by making it or what?
If you’re just asking our opinions then I would say why the hell not? Wouldn’t it be cool to have a DougC font floating around the 'net? It would be super cool to see someone you don’t know using it.
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### Author:  [@rackensack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rackensack)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2003, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-make-this-font/147133/3 "2003-01-07T16:05:55Z")
You’d be creating a font to represent a particular typeface. Typefaces themselves cannot be copyrighted. The names of typefaces, however, can be. If “Excelsior” is a copyrighted typeface name (don’t know offhand if that’s the case, though I suspect it is) you can’t call it that. However, there’s nothing that precludes you from creating, from scratch, a computer font that can be used to produce a typeface that looks identical to an existing typeface (something type foundries have lamented for decades, since long before there were electronic fonts – the same thing was true in the days of metal type, paper tape, and phototypositor typesetting).
The other thing that is copyrightable is the actual computer font data – the digital instructions your computer or printer uses to draw the typeface. So you can’t simply make a copy of an existing commercial font, change the name, and distribute that as your own work, whether for free or otherwise. You also can’t use an existing font program as a starting point and modify some or all of the glyphs. In general, however, if you’re using a font creation program to create the font from scratch and working from drawings or scans of the glyphs and don’t use a name that’s identical to a name belonging to someone else, you’re in the clear.
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### Author:  [@miamouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miamouse)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2003, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-i-make-this-font/147133/4 "2003-01-07T16:28:28Z")
I’m not sure they could be considered the same font, just on a quick scan using the stamps on the underside of the box: the 8, the ampersand and the lowercase k, and both s’s are different than the fonts shown on Adobe, Linotype or ITC’s sites (bold version).
Adobe’s site say’s this:
> [@](#):
>
> Typeface notes:
> Excelsior was produced in 1931 under the supervision of Chauncey H. Griffith of Linotype. Like Corona, Excelsior was one of the five typefaces in Griffith’s Legibility Group, types that were designed specifically to remain legible under the poor printing conditions that are a matter of course in newspaper printing. Excelsior is still used for that purpose by many European daily newspapers. Excelsior is excellent for newsletters, reports, and proposals.
> Designer:
>
> • Chauncey H. Griffith
> Excelsior is a Trademark of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG exclusively licensed through Linotype Library GmbH, and may be registered in certain jurisdictions.
Link: [http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/F/EXCE/F\_EXCE-10012000.jhtml;jsessionid=VT2WQ23FNFCFTQFI0IKBCY4AVDJBKIV2?id=type-020](http://www.adobe.com/type/browser/F/EXCE/F_EXCE-10012000.jhtml;jsessionid=VT2WQ23FNFCFTQFI0IKBCY4AVDJBKIV2?id=type-020)
A yahoo search (excelsior price markers) doesn’t turn up much, but I didn’t try too hard. If the question is whether or not you can call it excelsior stressed or somesuch, people might confuse it with other font houses version of excelsior, but the font doesn’t look the same to me. You have to figure if the company Excelsior still exists somewhere or if there are other markings on the box which might reveal the real name of the font. Good letters to compare to identify a font are the P, Qq, &, @, $, ?, f, g, a.