Prince was ahead of the curve in releasing a font with only 1 symbol. Around the introduction of the Euro and its symbol € in 1999, a number of commercial fonts lacked the symbol, and a suppliment could be downloaded. Though often, type foundries just released one Euro font with variations for all their best sellers. Though by that time, it usually was not distributed via floppy disk.
Hello Linus, i really enjoy your Videos. It would be cool if you could make a Video about the nonsensical PEPSI Logo Redesign Document, i think it would fit greatly on your channel.
@@a.wodehouse2393 I believe you legally can’t, as it wasn’t released online and is under copyright. Or something like that, I read a longer article about it at the same time this sort came out.
Imagine recieving a floppy with only the one Prince fucking wingding. That is both incredibly eccentric in a way that is more on brand than anything else for Prince, and freakin hilarious
As a way to annoy your record label, it's pretty awesome - imagine what it cost them to set up and distribute all those floppies to all relevant outlets!
Considering the fact Warner Music told Prince they owned the rights to his legal name, changing his name to a symbol was a genius move. He was making a point.
As a graphic designer working in 2021, it's hard to imagine having to wait days for a font or any digital asset to come through the mail. Kids these days.
I haven't been a kid for longer than I care to remember... I do remember, however, typesetting word things onto long strips of sticky-by-gum or sticky-by-wax photo paper. Or the dreaded Letraset, which became unobliging if it wasn't used fairly quickly. It had a half-life of about six months. By that I mean, half the letter refused to release, usually the serifs....
@@johnberkley6942 well good news: I found a bunch of Letraset deadstock and somehow they work fine, despite the humid climate of the place they were sold in (Singapore). They were left outside the store (in the shade but still) for anyone who wanted to buy them, at a dollar and 20 cents!
@@TryinaD Well, knock me over with a feather! Maybe my olden-days house of employ had conditions deadly to the longevity of Letraset. Air conditioning? We had several tricks to persuade reluctant Letraset to let go. Dousing the back of the sheet with bullgum spirit or somesuch, I don't remember. That tended to be a one-time trick only!
I love that he made you type a capital-P. He could've just let you use a lowercase p like a sensible person but no, it was /vitally important/ that you have to go the extra mile of pressing shift. Prince managed to assert dominance with a font, I love it.
One Character (or limited character) fonts are fun. A convention I volunteer for has one that is just a few variations on our logo allowing us to type set it in anywhere it's needed.
A company I worked for - Questus - had the same issue. The ‘Q’ was created in dark red and burgundy with lots of strange folds and lips, but required every client to install a custom font to display our company name! We also used Gil Sans as our preferred font so had to distribute that as well! Good thinking Chris and Mike!
Prince had the right to make music his way. He was an incredible musician a true artist...we shall 4ever miss his talented contributions...xoxo 4you darling Prince xoxo 😘❤💜♥💕💖
The german broadcaster "ARD" uses a custom font for CI porpuses aswell. Each letter contains a custom logo of all the TV channeles like Das Erste, SWR and so on. For graphic designers they just send out the font with a manual how to use it. Not sure if this is common practise among big companies but it's an interesting concept. You can't really add any new logos to it. So there is a limitation if you're introducing a new brand.
Wow what an incredible and intelligent thing to do ! Such an amazing, awesome and another handsome man whom is my favorite artist.I love his take charge and be independent spirit! May he rest in peace 🕊️🎤🎸💜💜💜🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾
I looked it up. The studio execs wanted him to put out fewer albums, saying he was flooding the market (and thus reducing profits). As his record label owned the trademark rights to the name "Prince," he came up with the new name so he could release more albums without breaking his contract. Now whether this would actually work legally is in despite, but it seems no one tried to call him on it. It's not entirely clear if this would legallt
I have a 'TechBaffle' font with my icon and logo - mainly so I can use it in word-only Premiere/After Effects templates 😂 I think I used Glyphter to convert SVG to a font. Pretty handy!
Interesting. And it's actually a really nice character he made as well, I mean I knew of the symbol, but I never knew that it existed as a TrueType font.
It's curious that they opted for the font solution rather than also including the symbol in various graphics formats in use back then. But at the time, EPS and TIFF and only a few others would have been universally usable, but often only with specialized programs, or people such as news and publicity outlets would not always know how to use the graphics properly. The custom font seemed like a good solution, but it meant that to display it on-screen and in-print, people had to have the font, since rights issues were precluding most inclusions in PDF or any early web pages or ebooks or portable documents. And whoa, were all those formats cumbersome and full of problems for audiences and designers. Don't forget to bundle all your graphics and font assets for the printer. Ugh. Still kind of a mess now.
At the time, I thought it was a vanity move, a publicity stunt. But during the thing, his reasons were talked about, and this lasted for years before he could move to what he wanted, so he could release what and when he wanted, plus hold rights to his artist name and his songs. Looking back on it, what he did was brilliant. It created this whole weird hoopla, lots of discussion and publicity over the dang logotype, and people found out what his grievance was with the record label. Everyone knew him by that symbol and by his name and "the artist formerly known as Prince," which was a hilarious mouthful. And y'know what? As a musician / singer / producer and as a creative artist, he was RIGHT to be upset and to fight back, and it. was actually more classy than complaining or yelling or cussing about it. (Which, granted, he would've also been within his rights to do.) And all these years later, that logo symbol is STILL known by any of his fans and plenty of other people. The design itself was pretty good, combining musical motifs and an androgynous element he played up at the time. So it suggests music, trumpets, sexiness, and protest. (At least.) Whether the symbol was his idea or someone made it for him to choose, it was a success. What a strange music and font moment that went down in history. What Prince fan doesn't recognize that? :D
Desktop publishing tools were pretty basic in 1993. Putting an image inline in text was a pain, and if you deleted a sentence it would be a pain to move any other instances of the image. Plus file sizes and vector graphic formats were not standardized across software. A font was actually a pretty elegant solution.
I will make a font with a symbol that reasembles a guitar. Then, every guitarist, including me, will be using an instrument made in the shape of a letter in my font.
the closing fact about having a guitar in the shape of his own font almost implies that there are other musicians with their own fonts. hmmmm makes me wonder
Legend. I got wild whiplash going from a short of Ben shapiro whinging about neopronouns to this one about Prince's unpronounceable barely functional name. RUclips shorts really don't have the same grasp on my interests as tik tok does. More of these shenanigans pls
Font Fact - This isn't a font it's a typeface. A font has a size value to it so Helvetica 12pt is a font where as Helvetica (on its own) is a typeface. It comes from a time where printing was done manually on a press and you had to buy each typeface in the sizes you needed. This is also where the terms leading come from and uppercase and lowercase. You kept the capital letters in the case that was on top, an upper case eg.....
@@handofike Font Fact - we treat digital font software the same as cases and cases of metal sorts. in both “cases” (pun intended) these fonts contain all of the letters the designer needs, and they are trained to use the letters inside of the fonts. This distinction is independent of size since phototype (seemingly) made size-specific fonts obsolete. (though some digital fonts do have different versions for different point sizes) Yes, “typeface” describes the “face” or design of the font, referring to all possible sizes, and also other foundries’ releases of the same design but produced independently. Nowhere in this video is there a typeface name given for this font file, containing the prince symbol. So, this whole video titled “In 1993 Prince released his own font.” discusses the creation of the font file, and the release of that font created by The Font Bureau on behalf of prince. is all about music journalists needing the literal font file to use that newly designed glyph on their computers. so. this IS about the font. However, the ending should be “the only artist to ever have a guitar made in the in the shape of his own GLYPH.”
@@MarkFonts Indeed it is a glyph - I was being tongue in cheek about this I was kinda fronting a caricature of us typesetters in opposition to 'modern' uses of type. However I was using the correct heritage terminology, the terms used now stem from how typesetters and those who have worked with letters for centuries. I think the term glyph is a few hundred years old and comes from engraving.
George Lopez told him that he’s the reason why people are using symbols in text. Prince declined that notion but seriously, who else uses ❤️👁 ☮️ U B C R 2 4 1 8 in their lyrics and song titles.
Prince was ahead of the curve in releasing a font with only 1 symbol. Around the introduction of the Euro and its symbol € in 1999, a number of commercial fonts lacked the symbol, and a suppliment could be downloaded. Though often, type foundries just released one Euro font with variations for all their best sellers. Though by that time, it usually was not distributed via floppy disk.
Hello Linus, i really enjoy your Videos.
It would be cool if you could make a Video about the nonsensical PEPSI Logo Redesign Document, i think it would fit greatly on your channel.
@@yorshka6955 that's actually a good one. Anyone reading this please look it up. It's like a 20 page pdf justifying the new logo
Sort of surprised it didn't come on a quadruple gatefold floppy disk with 206 design outtakes ;-)
How do you type this now? Please explain?
@@a.wodehouse2393 I believe you legally can’t, as it wasn’t released online and is under copyright. Or something like that, I read a longer article about it at the same time this sort came out.
Prince himself distributing floppy disks w only a single symbol on it is hilarious
Tbh I'm just imagining him handing out to strangers on the street
Aww, your cat is cute :p
and still totaly in character
Imagine a font where every character is the symbol of a different artist starting with that letter. You could type a 26-member band!
Omg cary i love u!!!
lowkey that ideas kinda interesting
Please edit to be "36" to account for numbers.
The “E” should definitely be taken from Eminem’s logo
holy moly poly crawling in guacamole its cary
Imagine recieving a floppy with only the one Prince fucking wingding. That is both incredibly eccentric in a way that is more on brand than anything else for Prince, and freakin hilarious
I feel the overwhelming need to become the only other artist to have guitars made in my own font
nonono, you gotta one-up Prince. Do a KEYtar.
As a way to annoy your record label, it's pretty awesome - imagine what it cost them to set up and distribute all those floppies to all relevant outlets!
Possibly hundreds of dollars!
maybe... a thousand
Considering the fact Warner Music told Prince they owned the rights to his legal name, changing his name to a symbol was a genius move. He was making a point.
As a graphic designer working in 2021, it's hard to imagine having to wait days for a font or any digital asset to come through the mail. Kids these days.
"Them wippersnappers with their gagety cellular game boys; why back in my day we threw rocks at each other and peed in trees"
I haven't been a kid for longer than I care to remember... I do remember, however, typesetting word things onto long strips of sticky-by-gum or sticky-by-wax photo paper. Or the dreaded Letraset, which became unobliging if it wasn't used fairly quickly. It had a half-life of about six months. By that I mean, half the letter refused to release, usually the serifs....
@@johnberkley6942 well good news: I found a bunch of Letraset deadstock and somehow they work fine, despite the humid climate of the place they were sold in (Singapore). They were left outside the store (in the shade but still) for anyone who wanted to buy them, at a dollar and 20 cents!
@@TryinaD Well, knock me over with a feather! Maybe my olden-days house of employ had conditions deadly to the longevity of Letraset. Air conditioning? We had several tricks to persuade reluctant Letraset to let go. Dousing the back of the sheet with bullgum spirit or somesuch, I don't remember. That tended to be a one-time trick only!
@@johnberkley6942 sounds like a curse or a big streak of good luck on this Singaporean art store’s part, haha
"five minutes of fonts facts you didnt know" would be a hell of a series
I could listen to way more than that of Linus talking about fonts but I’ll settle for 5 minutes an episode
I love that he made you type a capital-P. He could've just let you use a lowercase p like a sensible person but no, it was /vitally important/ that you have to go the extra mile of pressing shift. Prince managed to assert dominance with a font, I love it.
Are you sure it’s not just be a his name is spelled with a capital p?
Photo caption of Prince at that time from Rolling Stone: 'You know who this guy is. Don't make us say it.'
XD
Prince was/is a true genius on so many levels. 💜💜💜
Kinda dissapointed. Expected a full alphabet of alien Prince-like symbols haha. Great video nevertheless
I have the perfect name for it, Alphabet Street!
For that you need to accidentally choose Zapf Dingbats...
We could train an AI to create it
The language of Prince's home planet.
same someone needs to make that
He was PRINCE. Buy he was also a KING 👑👑👑
Thing is, the media didn't use it; they'd write out "the artist formerly known as Prince". Annoying.
One Character (or limited character) fonts are fun. A convention I volunteer for has one that is just a few variations on our logo allowing us to type set it in anywhere it's needed.
A company I worked for - Questus - had the same issue. The ‘Q’ was created in dark red and burgundy with lots of strange folds and lips, but required every client to install a custom font to display our company name! We also used Gil Sans as our preferred font so had to distribute that as well! Good thinking Chris and Mike!
Prince was also a wonderful giver to others, he donated a lot but never made a "song & dance" about it... God bless you PRINCE !! ... RIP... 🙏☹
Imagine a world where everyone is represented by a font
Prince had the right to make music his way. He was an incredible musician a true artist...we shall 4ever miss his talented contributions...xoxo 4you darling Prince xoxo 😘❤💜♥💕💖
He was even smarter than I thought. Genius!
When Prince changed his name to this font/ symbol he took their power away.
The german broadcaster "ARD" uses a custom font for CI porpuses aswell. Each letter contains a custom logo of all the TV channeles like Das Erste, SWR and so on. For graphic designers they just send out the font with a manual how to use it. Not sure if this is common practise among big companies but it's an interesting concept. You can't really add any new logos to it. So there is a limitation if you're introducing a new brand.
Wow what an incredible and intelligent thing to do ! Such an amazing, awesome and another handsome man whom is my favorite artist.I love his take charge and be independent spirit! May he rest in peace 🕊️🎤🎸💜💜💜🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾
anytime I learn something new about Prince the more I think this dude was a comedic genius
i never thought i’d love videos about fonts so much, thanks for making these xD
Prince was such a legend. Who else has ever had the gall to do this
0:36 Now we wait until Vulfpeck releases a Joe Dart Bass in the form of a letter from their font :)
Fun fact: When Prince died it was impossible to pay respects using his font.
Press Ƭ̵̬̊ to pay respects?
Those floppy discs are probably collectors items, aren't they?
Welp, there goes my hopes and dreams
i never realized how much prince looked like dave chapelle
"The internet is over." - Prince, 2010
Kinda hoped to know what the dispute was about and how it relates to the event
same
I looked it up. The studio execs wanted him to put out fewer albums, saying he was flooding the market (and thus reducing profits). As his record label owned the trademark rights to the name "Prince," he came up with the new name so he could release more albums without breaking his contract.
Now whether this would actually work legally is in despite, but it seems no one tried to call him on it.
It's not entirely clear if this would legallt
He was the most human alien I'd ever seen. RIP Purple Yoda.
The very pioneer of his own brand copyright.
I have a 'TechBaffle' font with my icon and logo - mainly so I can use it in word-only Premiere/After Effects templates 😂
I think I used Glyphter to convert SVG to a font. Pretty handy!
Now that's a fucking power move.
Him being graphically extra sent me.
Oh so thats the history of his guitar. I’ve always been curious about it.
Imagine if this was added into Unicode...
Interesting. And it's actually a really nice character he made as well, I mean I knew of the symbol, but I never knew that it existed as a TrueType font.
It's curious that they opted for the font solution rather than also including the symbol in various graphics formats in use back then. But at the time, EPS and TIFF and only a few others would have been universally usable, but often only with specialized programs, or people such as news and publicity outlets would not always know how to use the graphics properly. The custom font seemed like a good solution, but it meant that to display it on-screen and in-print, people had to have the font, since rights issues were precluding most inclusions in PDF or any early web pages or ebooks or portable documents. And whoa, were all those formats cumbersome and full of problems for audiences and designers. Don't forget to bundle all your graphics and font assets for the printer. Ugh. Still kind of a mess now.
The artist formerly known as font.
I love how the thumbnail has Dave Chapelle
At least I think it’s him
Or so you think Prince was the only artist who had a guitar made in the shape of his own font.
Well that's just.. fontastic. ;D
Love Prince ❤️
Wish it wasn’t in portrait mode
That prince Judo move thooo, ppl still using Dave Chappelle as a thumbnail on prince related videos makes me smile
Everyone also went around calling him "the artist formerly known as Prince" for legal reasons.
Fun fact: The font name and only word translates to Prince
I love him sigh
best font ever
In the 90s it was all about fonts and screen savers.
Prince the Giant 💜
At the time, I thought it was a vanity move, a publicity stunt. But during the thing, his reasons were talked about, and this lasted for years before he could move to what he wanted, so he could release what and when he wanted, plus hold rights to his artist name and his songs. Looking back on it, what he did was brilliant. It created this whole weird hoopla, lots of discussion and publicity over the dang logotype, and people found out what his grievance was with the record label. Everyone knew him by that symbol and by his name and "the artist formerly known as Prince," which was a hilarious mouthful. And y'know what? As a musician / singer / producer and as a creative artist, he was RIGHT to be upset and to fight back, and it. was actually more classy than complaining or yelling or cussing about it. (Which, granted, he would've also been within his rights to do.) And all these years later, that logo symbol is STILL known by any of his fans and plenty of other people. The design itself was pretty good, combining musical motifs and an androgynous element he played up at the time. So it suggests music, trumpets, sexiness, and protest. (At least.) Whether the symbol was his idea or someone made it for him to choose, it was a success. What a strange music and font moment that went down in history. What Prince fan doesn't recognize that? :D
it was the font bureau.
u r my favorite linus on youtube
Guy's a fucking legend
Dave Chappelle on the thumbnail lol
Is that not Dave Chapelle in the thumbnail?
Yes. From this classic: ruclips.net/video/4trBQseIkkc/видео.html
Thank you, I couldn't figure out why no one commented on the thumbnail being obviously Dave Chappelle
And prince even used this picture of Dave Chapelle on his own single ;)
What a cool fact!
Prince was ahead of his time
When the teacher says you can't use comic sans papyrus joker or wingdings but says nothing about Prince
Can you believe to learn that Prince actually released his own font?
Dude! I wanna download the Prince Font!
Isnt that dave chapelle on your thumbnail
Unpronounceable? It’s just a sign. I’ll still call him Prince. He’s so damn extra.
I bet those floppy disks are worth thousands
Before I even watched the video my face physically went full poker
Like
"wtf"
But why a font rather than distributing an image file?
Desktop publishing tools were pretty basic in 1993. Putting an image inline in text was a pain, and if you deleted a sentence it would be a pain to move any other instances of the image. Plus file sizes and vector graphic formats were not standardized across software. A font was actually a pretty elegant solution.
@@LinusBoman That makes a lot of sense, thanks!
Don't you mean Type Face? Font is the size.
"Prince turned himself into a symbol"
You truly are a
font
of knowledge
What's that Prince song in the background? Please someone.
MFs be like a font
Anil Dash is quite the Prince scholar and wrote an excellent book on the Purple one.
Anil, U R ‘font’ of knowledge on all things Prince. 😎
O(+>
LGBT community: yeah that looks like one of ours, cancel him girlboys
I will make a font with a symbol that reasembles a guitar. Then, every guitarist, including me, will be using an instrument made in the shape of a letter in my font.
🎸 - you're welcome
I thought it was Dave Chappelle on the thumbnail
What a cool fact
whats the song used in the background?
ruclips.net/video/OV0pzFxcgtk/видео.html
What prince song is in the background.
now the eminem line makes sense
Lol always wondered why he said that
the closing fact about having a guitar in the shape of his own font almost implies that there are other musicians with their own fonts. hmmmm makes me wonder
background music?
Hey does anybody recognize the song used in the background of this video?
I bet the press weren't very font of that.
Legend. I got wild whiplash going from a short of Ben shapiro whinging about neopronouns to this one about Prince's unpronounceable barely functional name. RUclips shorts really don't have the same grasp on my interests as tik tok does. More of these shenanigans pls
That was the year I was born!
Did that guy just say 90-93......
How the hell was this impossible to draw?
I love my state
What song is playing in the background?
I literally thought it was giorno giovanna
Simple. Menus or Vars
Font Fact - This isn't a font it's a typeface. A font has a size value to it so Helvetica 12pt is a font where as Helvetica (on its own) is a typeface. It comes from a time where printing was done manually on a press and you had to buy each typeface in the sizes you needed.
This is also where the terms leading come from and uppercase and lowercase. You kept the capital letters in the case that was on top, an upper case eg.....
🤓
😂
@@handofike Font Fact - we treat digital font software the same as cases and cases of metal sorts. in both “cases” (pun intended) these fonts contain all of the letters the designer needs, and they are trained to use the letters inside of the fonts. This distinction is independent of size since phototype (seemingly) made size-specific fonts obsolete. (though some digital fonts do have different versions for different point sizes)
Yes, “typeface” describes the “face” or design of the font, referring to all possible sizes, and also other foundries’ releases of the same design but produced independently. Nowhere in this video is there a typeface name given for this font file, containing the prince symbol.
So, this whole video titled “In 1993 Prince released his own font.” discusses the creation of the font file, and the release of that font created by The Font Bureau on behalf of prince. is all about music journalists needing the literal font file to use that newly designed glyph on their computers.
so. this IS about the font. However, the ending should be “the only artist to ever have a guitar made in the in the shape of his own GLYPH.”
@@MarkFonts Indeed it is a glyph - I was being tongue in cheek about this I was kinda fronting a caricature of us typesetters in opposition to 'modern' uses of type.
However I was using the correct heritage terminology, the terms used now stem from how typesetters and those who have worked with letters for centuries. I think the term glyph is a few hundred years old and comes from engraving.
George Lopez told him that he’s the reason why people are using symbols in text. Prince declined that notion but seriously, who else uses ❤️👁 ☮️ U B C R 2 4 1 8 in their lyrics and song titles.
Hehe floppy disk
So bad ass