CMD Video Side Quest 2: The CMD Font

[intric8]

During the making of my GEOS Battle Station / CMD video, I decided to recreate the JiffyDOS logo in vector format in Adobe Illustrator. I based it off the cover of an original user’s manual.

Original Manual

My updated vector version

Anyway, I think I got it pretty close. (update below - I later got it 99.9% perfect.)

After researching it for a couple of hours, I believe that this font is a very close cousin to one found on some C64 boxes. It’s not 100% 1:1, but it’s REALLY close.

Of course the ‘f’, ‘y’ and ’s’ are heavily stylized but once I located the font - Kabel Black - it made everything come together a lot faster and easier with only minor adjustments being necessary. (My version needs a few more minor tweaks before I'm calling it done.)

I asked the original designer of the logo, Doug Cotton, and he confirmed that Kabel is indeed the way to go, however he couldn't remember the specific font foundry. He knew it was definitely a postscript type 1 font.

Doug Cotton:

Most of the logo design work was done using a combination of ATM Deluxe and Aldus (later Macromedia) Freehand, generally exported as TIFF files.

Artwork and advertising was generally produced in Pagemaker, which was also used for Commodore World magazine.

Manuals were all done in Microsoft Word. [!!!]

The bulk of the font work and publishing was done on Apple Macintosh computers (and clones), starting with a Mac Plus and upgrading over time.

Pretty cool, right? So based on my limited initial research I'm thinking Kabel ITC Type 1 Postscript font is likely a solid bet (I will test this out on a real vintage Macintosh later).

Part of me wishes I'd put that in the video but it felt to be too much of a Side Quest diversion from the overall topic.

(See also: Side Quest 1: The CMD Computer)

[intric8]

I went down a seriously deep and dark rabbit hole yesterday on a quest to recreate the environment CMD used for making their logos, artwork and magazines.

After a ton of online sleuthing, I found the original font on the Adobe Font Folio 8 package from 1997/1998. I bet the font actually came from an earlier package (e.g. Font Folio 7 in 1995) but an image of that isn't anywhere to be found online. Font Folio 8 contains 2,300 Type 1 fonts, including the Kabel font by Linotype along with several weights.

In order to use the ISO image I had to do the following:

• Download the ISO on my modern Mac and move it to a USB thumb drive.
• Move over to my G3 Powerbook Pismo running 9.2.2 (with USB ports) and install Aladdin Systems ShrinkWrap 3.5.1. I'm very familiar with Stuffit Expander by Aladdin, but had never even heard of ShrinkWrap.
• Use Stuffit Expander to unarchive ShrinkWrap then install it.
• Use ShrinkWrap to unarchive the Font Folio
• Use Toast to mount the ISO
• Copy all of the fonts locally (I have over 115GB free, so why not?)
• Take a floppy disk and format it on my Quadra 700, now moving over to the 3rd Mac in the chain
• Pop out the VST CD-RW cartridge in the Pismo and put in a VST floppy drive
• Write all Kabel font over to floppy
• Install the fonts on the Quadra
• Fire up Pagemaker 5 to test the font(s)

There we go! Just need to convert to outlines and work on that kerning and edit the vectors a little bit.

Next up I am going to install Illustrator 7 (rather than Freehand) so I can do some fine tuning and get things looking perfect.

Once done I can reverse the process to put things back on the Pismo, then my modern machine. And then... I dunno. Maybe make a JiffyDOS coffee mug or something with a period-correct logo.

Kind of ironic CMD's print collateral was all made on mid-90s Macs when the company hardware and software was all about "high end publishing" on the Commodore 64 and 128.

[Zippy Zapp]

Awesome stuff. That is a great collection of 90s Mac fonts right there. I will for sure check that out.

+1 to recreation. Look forward to seeing what you accomplish.