Boing Boing Staging

TT2020: an old-timey typewriter typeface that doesn't look fake

TT2020 is “an advanced, open source, hyperrealistic, multilingual typewriter font for a new decade!” As there already are so many, why another? Creator Fredrick Brennan (previously) points out that most fonts which attempt to create the look of a real analog typewriter lack alternative glyphs and other modern features, displaying tell-tale repetitions of aberrations and flaws. He spotted some recent howlers in expensive Hollywood productions that should know better, such as The Joker.

The absurd lack of realism displayed here let me know that I could put this project off no longer. In case you don’t see anything wrong … In the second image, there are three ‹N›’s. Yet, they all look exactly the same. A real typewriter can, quite rarely, have one of its letters damaged, or misaligned, such that that letter regularly makes an inferior strike to all the other letters. However, this degree of regularity is impossible; could Underwood or Remington have acheived it, they would have leapt for joy. It is therefore clearly a digital facsimile and not a real typewritten document.

The example he shows from The Irishman is similarly egregious. Doesn’t anyone in Hollywood own a real typewriter?

TT2020 comes in a variety of weights and styles to emulate specific reproduction environments. It’s open-source, too, with technical notes to enjoy.

TT2020 [ctrlcctrlv.github.io]

Exit mobile version