Name That Font
August 11, 2010 2:15 AM   Subscribe

Can anyone identify this font?

It was the font used by CBS Sports throughout the 80's, and evokes some powerful nostalgia in me. I'd love to be able to use it if I could identify it, or something similar.
posted by mreleganza to Media & Arts (11 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Ask the guys over here.
posted by the cuban at 2:25 AM on August 11, 2010


mreleganza: Did you try tidying it up, and passing it through WhatTheFont?
posted by devnull at 2:32 AM on August 11, 2010


Response by poster: DEVNULL: I did. Remains unsolved.
posted by mreleganza at 2:42 AM on August 11, 2010


What year's this screencap from?

Looks like a variant of Univers to me. The low resolution doesn't help too much though.
posted by public at 2:53 AM on August 11, 2010


Response by poster: Public: 1987.
posted by mreleganza at 3:03 AM on August 11, 2010


Here's some more images from CBS sports that have the same typeface.

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YHaf6xEi190/0.jpg
http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cWntRFuSNp8/0.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/06/Cbsnba.jpg
posted by public at 4:21 AM on August 11, 2010


I agree with public: looks like Univers condensed bold to me.
posted by letourneau at 5:44 AM on August 11, 2010


It looks like a variant of Impact to me... similar to the font they used for the in-credit logo for Hawaii Five-O, and the 4th logo (scroll down) on this page.
posted by kaudio at 7:33 AM on August 11, 2010


CBS Branding style Guidelines (Mentions CBS Didot (Logo Font), but not the other sans serif text).
The original designer of the CBS eye logo was William Golden.
More about CBS (early director of) design. (From the Blue)

Freeman Craw designed 2 fonts for Lou Dorfsman for CBS in the 1960s: CBS Didot and CBS Sans ...but it turns out that the fonts were for in-house use, and other fonts could be used for 'outwards facing' design.

After an attack of teh googles, I came upon this blog post about the work of the famous Dorfsman, including a page of a book about him with the useful bit.

...I think the font might be a wide version of Impact:
(The thicks and thins of Univers just weren't quite doing it for me)

Impact is a realist sans-serif typeface designed by Geoffrey Lee in 1965 and released by the Stephenson Blake foundry.

posted by metaphorical at 7:34 AM on August 11, 2010 [1 favorite]


The G in Impact has a very clear descender. The G in the pictures doesn't seem to but the low quality and very tight letter-spacing don't help. I agree that the horizontal strokes on Univers are probably too thick though.
posted by public at 7:57 AM on August 11, 2010


Your best bet is the obsessive typespotters at Typophile.

It's not Univers or Impact. And no, I don't have a better answer.
posted by O9scar at 1:04 PM on August 11, 2010


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