Classic-look keyboard fonts

[zobar]

My first mechanical keyboard came in the mail today, a Leopold TKL … it feels like a brick and sounds like Productivity. I want to get some old-skool keycaps for it from WASD so I've been poring over pictures of Model Ms. I've been trying to match the font and came up with bupkis. Helvetica looks too modern to me, and a lot of the punctuation and lower-case characters don't seem to match up ($*[]^kpq{}). Is it possible that IBM also used something along the lines of SP's Gorton Modified?

I finally beat my OCD into submission and decided that the keycap font is hardly the least 'authentic' part of a TKL Dvorak keyboard with Mac control keys. I've decided on Folio Light, which is very similar to Helvetica in a lot of ways, but it has just enough idiosyncrasies to give it that not-quite-of-this-decade feel. (But for those of you keeping score, they were both designed in 1957, and are both based on Akzidenz-Grotesk). I'll post the layout when I've finalized it, but it's nothing special.

[kps]

Going by the keys on the terminal F in front of me, I think it's Berthold AG Book.

[blert]

How closely does the standard Signature Plastics font come to looking like what you want?

[zobar]

AG Book is definitely really really really close. It's also really really really expensive, and I don't know how I feel about having the font cost more than the rest of the keyboard. :ohwell:

I like the font on the SP keys, but it's my understanding that it's never been digitized.

[kps]

After taking a Model M under a magnifier this evening, I think the font is a closer to Helvetica than to AG Book, most clearly in "%" and "&". However, some characters don't really match either ("@", "~", and "g"). Also, the ends of strokes are all radiused, and both the large characters and small characters (labels) have the same radius of about .2mm, which means that the ends of strokes on the small characters are half-round, while the large characters only have rounded corners. That makes me think that perhaps it started with Helvetica or a clone, was converted to a form cut by a small round tool (e.g. for doubleshot molds), and then that form with its rounded corners was converted back for printing.

[dorkvader]

Also, the $ is clearly not Helvetica.

Interesting theory, kps. After examining my IBM keycaps, I believe you may be right.

[zobar]

Yikes. Analog technology FTW. If that's the case, the IBM font may be lost to history. If Unicomp started with the same labels as IBM, I would expect keys that postdate IBM (Menu, Command, Option) not to match the others exactly.

I might do a mockup tonight with AG Book Rounded for the small type and Helvetica for the larger type.

I noticed while looking at AG Book that the lighter weights have a full-stroke dollar sign and the heavier and more condensed weights just have top & bottom. At this point it's aesthetic, as a full stroke would look too crowded. In a more analog technology it may also be technical, and I wouldn't be surprised if somebody along the way just removed the stroke because it was getting in the way.

[zobar]

I have learned more about Helvetica and its offspring over the last week than I could ever possibly care about. Long story short, the font on the IBM keyboard could very well have been a commissioned variant of Helvetica. AG Book Regular and Nimbus Sans Regular seem to be dead ringers for most of the text. AG Book is closer in some ways; Nimbus Sans is closer in others. To my admittedly untrained eye, Nimbus Sans D Regular seems to be the closest of all. Nimbus Sans has the added benefit of being ¹⁄₁₀ the price of AG Book.

Of course, after all this sturm und drang, I printed out my layout at 100% only to realize that with 10pt type it doesn't make a damn bit of difference.

[alaricljs]

and then that form with its rounded corners was converted back for printing.

Perhaps the dyesub was pad printed?  They may have molded the pads from the DS molds?

[kps]

To my admittedly untrained eye, Nimbus Sans D Regular seems to be the closest of all. Nimbus Sans has the added benefit of being ¹⁄₁₀ the price of AG Book.

Of course, after all this sturm und drang, I printed out my layout at 100% only to realize that with 10pt type it doesn't make a damn bit of difference.

Nimbus Sans L Regular is available free (GPL, AFPL, or LPPL), if it's close enough for you, or if you want to take the time to tweak it or round the corners.

[zobar]

Being the #1 Keyboard Expert On The Planet means I pointed that out and documented it first on the Internet.

I saw that, actually, and it's what brought me to GH in the first place. Some time after IBM used 'Helvetica' on their keyboards, Adobe included a different 'Helvetica' in Postscript, which became the one that designers are now snobbish about [cf. Arial]. The main difference that I can see is IBM-ish Helvetica has really round circles and short descenders, whereas Adobe Helvetica has slightly condensed circles and longer descenders. To confuse matters more, URW digitized IBM-ish Helvetica as 'Nimbus Sans' and Adobe-ish Helvetica as 'Nimbus Sans L'. [URW also happened to digitize AG Book under contract for Berthold.]

Really though, Filco Italic Futura is just as good and not Apple Univers57 or *** Rounded Fanboi.

The Filco keycaps look hot. I never liked Univers Condensed Italic and I can give or take VAG.

And what about the first Apple keyboards by Datanetics - what font is that?

Butt ugly. Could be an engraving font.

And Wikipedia completely ignores the Newton keyboard with Gill Sans Regular.

I have an eMate at home and the Gill Sans keys look pretty slick.

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What's worse is that it's probably Johnston and not Gill Sans.

[zobar]

I only know enough to sound like I know what I'm talking about. Be careful with the keming.

[zobar]

Oh I nearly crapped myself laughing reading the Unicomp ZOMBIE HORDE thread. I would buy the **** out of those keys.

[captain]

The Filco keycaps look hot. I never liked Univers Condensed Italic and I can give or take VAG.

Butt ugly. Could be an engraving font.

I like VAG.  I think VAG may be my favorite place to tickle my fingertips.

I would hazard a guess that the original font for Apple keyboards was something that just came on the keyboard PCB (National Semiconductor I think) that Woz picked out of his Hewlett Packard book.  Maybe Jobs made the big choice between the two choices: sans or serif.  ;-P

[ReAzem]

Filco's Futura is a political font.  Paul Renner, the designer,  was thrown in jail for a while by the Nazis.  The Nazis were into traditional Blackletter. Of course.

But they banned Fraktur as not Aryan enough.
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Have to say this though. When a kid I always noticed the Nazis dressed better and had a more consistent design ethic.  It's a good example of driving good design throughout an organization.
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Ironic - Japanese firm using a very Germanic font.  Very Axis forces, in a post Pearl Harbor way.

Most Asian keyboards use unlicensed Helvetica.

Cheap.

Neutral.

Very Swiss.

And before some German reports my post Nazi images are banned in Germany so don't even click this post.

That was actually very interesting.

[zobar]

That's fascinating. I'm going to have to start using Futura more often. Leave it to the Nazis to be brand-Nazis.

[captain]

I found it interesting to learn that, for the KEEP CALM and CARRY ON posters of WWII, the British Government used a "special & handsome typeface" to make it difficult for Germany to counterfeit.

[IvanIvanovich]

NSDAP and Soviet design aesthetics are by far some of the most successful in all modern history. They were actually required study in my university design courses to much the chagrin of many. But it is hard to argue that they are both not some of the most instantly recognizable imagery in the world. Whether it is from excellent design, or the infamy behind it, is harder to sort out in some cases. Even still, if you actually can be objective, there is a lot to learn from masterful execution of overarching themes and a unified concept that made it a successful 'marketing campaign' for both the Nazis and Soviets. Some of those devices and techniques are still used to great effect in masked forms in a lot of popular culture and marketing today.