Identify odd font?

[ktinkel]

Originally Posted by Norbert

Thank you, Kathleen. Delighted to be here.

Hope you won’t be a stranger.

[ktinkel]

Originally Posted by jwoolf09

Anyone know what this font is and where I could find it?

Some new information:

First, three different font utilities found that Neon font to be damaged. I found and downloaded it from two different servers, with the same result.

However, I also discovered that Quicksilver ITC was an early (pre-Bitstream) Corel font, bundled with Draw sometime after 1992. It may have had that name or [Corel] Quantum.

It would be so old that I suspect the software was delivered on floppies, not CD. I hope some of this helps you find your font.

BTW — it has really wretched spacing. I was itching to respace it!

[Franca]

Originally Posted by ktinkel

Some new information:

First, three different font utilities found that Neon font to be damaged. I found and downloaded it from two different servers, with the same result.

However, I also discovered that Quicksilver ITC was an early (pre-Bitstream) Corel font, bundled with Draw sometime after 1992. It may have had that name or [Corel] Quantum.

BTW — it has really wretched spacing. I was itching to respace it!

Well, all of this piqued my interest. I went to look for Quicksilver on my system since I have most of the fonts that ever came bundled with Corel Draw. Sure enough, Quicksilver does appear in the list of fonts in Font Navigator. However, when I click on it, nothing shows up! So far it seems that this font in all of its various iterations is plagued by gremlins. When you mentioned funky spacing I was deeply suspicious and was prepared (if I found it) for it to display some weirdness or other. I wasn't quite expecting it to display nothing at all, but there you go ... it's dead, Jim. (Apologies to non-Star Trek fans.) This would seem to be a font to avoid.

[jwoolf09]

Originally Posted by ktinkel

However, I also discovered that Quicksilver ITC was an early (pre-Bitstream) Corel font, bundled with Draw sometime after 1992. It may have had that name or [Corel] Quantum.

It would be so old that I suspect the software was delivered on floppies, not CD. I hope some of this helps you find your font.

That's consistent: I remember finding that font on an old copy of CorelDraw -- version 3, I think. One of the first packages I remember buying on CD-ROM. The name "Quicksilver" isn't familiar, but it's more likely I would have looked at and used a font with that name than one called "Neon." On checking, I find that CorelGallery 3 includes a Quicksilver font, which isn't quite identical to the gif I posted, but is very similar.

Thanks all for the help!

[ktinkel]

Originally Posted by jwoolf09

That's consistent: I remember finding that font on an old copy of CorelDraw -- version 3, I think. One of the first packages I remember buying on CD-ROM. The name "Quicksilver" isn't familiar, but it's more likely I would have looked at and used a font with that name than one called "Neon." On checking, I find that CorelGallery 3 includes a Quicksilver font, which isn't quite identical to the gif I posted, but is very similar.

Thanks all for the help!

You’re welcome. Come back any time.

[deanmorris_nyc]

I'm Dean Morris, the designer of the typeface "Quicksilver" that came out in 1976 as part of Letraset's Letragraphica range of rub-down fonts, the stylishly aggeressive ones in the yellow pages of the catalog.

I named the typeface "Quicksliver" because it looked like bent thermometers — quicksilver being a nickname for mercury (I never meant it to suggest neon), and because "Quicksilver" had some of the cooler letters such as Q, K, E, and R. The name was my second choice, however. Letraset Englishly felt that my first choice,
"Polished Sausage", would be "rather unpopular in foreign markets".

I designed it as a 16 year-old kid in John Glenn High School in Bay City, Michigan, and sent Letraset a xerox of a tight sketch of 3" letters kerned with the heavy outlines slightly overlapping as I originally intended. I drew only the skinny S without an alternate and submitted no punctuation (what did I know?).

Letraset must have wanted it real fast (disco was WHITE HOT then, remember), because they did the finished art themselves at 5" high (they can't have known my age, maybe they had no confidence in my technical talent), starting with the E as did I in the design stage. And what a gorgeous rendering job they did in the pre-Mac days of ruling pens, straightedges, and handdrawn curves (those aren't compass curves)!

Letraset stayed very close to my tight sketch, designed the punctuation, and suggested an alternate but weird wide S, which I approved, figuring there was probably no other decent way to design it. I imagined the punctuation would match the stroke width of the letters but they drew them narrower and slightly oddly, but I figured what the hell.

If you wondered, "What was I thinking?" when you looked at the A, B, E, F, K, N, Q, R, and Y, I'll tell you. I was simply trying to describe part of the letter being drawn in the wrong direction. I thought I was so clever. For instance the E cross-stroke goes from right to left rather than from left to right like, oh, any other Roman cap E in history. R and Q diagonals came from waaaaaaaay on the other side, N goes waaaaaaay around the wrong way before starting the diagonal. "Chrome" letters can branch but these "glass tube" letters don't!

Alas, digitization came along eventually and Fontographer technology followed. Crash went sales of rub-down type, and control of artwork was pirated without my knowledge and beyond my control, which I don't condone but I totally understand.

The first album cover I saw with Quicksilver was Men At Work's first smash LP, then punk pioneer Stiff Records' logo appeared on 45 rpm labels with a clearly Quicksliver-inspired F. For about ten years I, family, and friends collected food packages, posters, took photos of signs, etc. with Quicksliver from around the world. I think it's about the easiest typeface to mishandle ever. Eventually I stopped trying to keep track of it.

Maybe I'm overestimating its popularity now after 30 years (I totally forgot about it for about a decade), but to me seeing it around at all is itself a rave. I can't remember why I Googled "Quicksilver Letraset" a few days ago and what I found was a whole community of sites for font identification and original name lists (where they bothered to accurately credit me as designer which gets me RIGHT HERE). It makes me feel less forgotten even though I don't see royalties.

BTW, I never did, nor did Letraset ask me to, design a lower case version. Feel free to pass along this modest piece of graphic microhistory to any Letraheads.

Dean Morris, May 2007, New York City.

[ktinkel]

Originally Posted by deanmorris_nyc

I'm Dean Morris, the designer of the typeface "Quicksilver" that came out in 1976 as part of Letraset's Letragraphica range of rub-down fonts …

Hey — many thanks for stopping by.

Nice to hear the full story of a font.

What do you do today? Not type design, I gather!

[dthomsen8]

Originally Posted by deanmorris_nyc

I'm Dean Morris, the designer of the typeface "Quicksilver" that came out in 1976 as part of Letraset's Letragraphica range of rub-down fonts, the stylishly aggeressive ones in the yellow pages of the catalog. ...

Thank you for the history. I suppose your arrival here in this forum is part of the amazing connections that search engines provide for us today.

[Norbert]

Yes, thank you Dean.
It's always great to hear about the background of a typeface from the designer himself.

If you don't mind, I might redirect some readers to view your post from another forum I frequent. You Quicksilver has made several appearances there as well.
Norbert

[deanmorris_nyc]

You're welcome to pass any of this info along.
To answer an earlier question, I was a graphic designer up until about '99 when I subverted to fine art.