Was Oz a Rubberman?

Nice topic.

Surely it isn't the case of Disney, which used Jonathan Barnbrook's typeface Ma(n)son, originally titled after the american killer Charles Manson, for the cover logo of the remastered edition of Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, with a violet cover (urgh!). See also here for the italian edition.

I think it's totally inappropriate. It's right, it associates with the Witch and the enchanted apple the evil underlying the original name choice (only a superficial person could think that Jon meant the name as an homage to Manson and be offended), but just because the kind of evil of Snow White's Witch was a much less "ill-flavored" evil than the one of a psychopathic killer of today, part of a society of which is often both a victim and an assassin.

Thus, here we have the opposite case: Designers sending "I'm ignorant"-signals to other designers.

I see it all the time but I like to think it's usually a coincidence. You'll see it on store signs and it's obvious that the store owner thought it was clever but I don't think the Oh Brother Where Art Thou? movie poster used Brother to wax clever etc. As far as store signs go, I'm just glad they're not using stretched out Helvetica vinyl cut letters. I like to think the the people who run the vinyl cutting machines are just going along with the store owner's wishes in these cases.

In Sweden we have a union organization called "Handels". (http://www.handels.se/) The font? Handel Gothic of course.

Christer, this is a classic irony in typography. There was a restaurant in LA called Mistral... enough said.

I think it usually happens when a designer is rushing and/or he has little imagination. Maybe the designer thinks it's funny, but I think it's safe to say that it has more potential for harm than anything else.

----

> it associates with the Witch and the enchanted apple the evil underlying the original name choice

To be fair to Disney :-/ I think they just chose it because it looks "legendary". Most designers are not font freaks like us - they don't simply know that Mason was originally called Manson.

> only a superficial person could think that Jon meant the name as an homage to Manson and be offended

So why was it changed? :-/

From what I understand, Barnbrook was furious about that.

hhp

Two more examples.

Tires and type - another one.

About Emigre name changes:

Manson name was changed to Mason, as my Tomazooma was changed to Ottomat, but there were reasons.

For Manson the reason is that some clever journalist of Time Magazine run an article on the disaffected people idolizing killers, talked about the Guns'n'Roses album "The Spaghetti Incident", which included a song written by Charles Manson, and accused Emigre of cashing in on suffering.

Of course they should have asked Jon, but Jon was unreachable and Rudy decided for the change. I cannot balme neither Rudy nor Jon. It was a delicate matter.

For Tomazooma the reason was pretty simple: Marvel Comics (Tomazooma was a robot-totem, an old villain from a Fantastic Four story of the 1960s) drove Rudy mad by not answering to give us the permission to use the name.

When Rudy phoned Marvel Comics a dumb girl told him we should have had to pay for the use of the name.

Neither me nor Rudy had intention to pay, so Rudy came up with the name Ottomat.

I dislike it, but we had to resign.

> Of course they should have asked Jon

Huh - I always thought there had been some discussion, at least.

hhp

OK, I'm guilty at least once of using Berkeley Oldstyle for an organization whose name includes the word "Berkeley." But, uh, that's going way back, and at least it's a better typeface than Mistral...

> at least it's a better typeface than Mistral...

I don't know.

http://www.typophile.com/forums/messages/30/1405.html

hhp

manson issue the emotions went - 1. amazemnt that people woudl complain 2. absolute guilt that i had caused any hurt 3. questioning 4. extreme annoyance that people had already decided why i had used the name and hurled some very nasty insult and assumptions my way.

looking back on it i think emigre were just trying to stop it getting out of hand so i am not annoyed with them. more that peol assumed the worst of motives. ithink now that people were not quite ready for such a complex meaning in the name. so it maybe it is not surprising. the nname manso would take a few pages to discuss but muchi of it is to do with opposites beign simialr and the phonetic sound of a word not equalling the meaning.

naming is directly to do with the poetry of the visual linking to the poetry of language. one of the things that id ecided whne i first start naming fonts was that it would ablsoutely be about 'now' the context of naming changed with digital fonts they were no longer a life's work so there was no need to use your surname and the era of ' illustrative jokey fonts' seemed confined to the letraset catallogue of history. so at the time it called for something mroe complex, which acknowledged current philosphies in design. anyway i could go on...

designers who use a font because it s name directly to the subject are just a bit lazy or are being very very ironic.

jb

> naming is directly to do with the poetry of the visual linking to the poetry of language.

Nice.

hhp

Very good, Jon,

I'm really glad you added your answer in person.

Of course no sensitive person would have ever though the name as an homage to Charles Manson.

I have to admit that I have some difficulties to follow you when you write so speedy and drop typos all over your texts.

Sadly I'm still not enough fluent in english! :-(

yes i can't type but then better to answer with typos than not at all. by the way virus is back onlne now and there should be no major problems with accessing it from now on as we have moved to a new much more relable server.

jb

Back to the topic of the original post, last night as I was watching the Wedding Singer on Superstation I saw a commercial for Cooper Tire Company! I said to my wife "look! that company is named cooper and they are using cooper black!!!" obviously, she wasn't very excited.

where can i download the ill fated manson font?
I used it at school and thought it looked great, but I can't find it anywhere! I need to print out more buisness cards, and that is the font i used. Please, someone tell me where i can download manson/ mason!

You should buy it, from Emigre.com of course!

hhp