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Top Sign Reference

Started by Scarfwearer, May 14, 2009, 03:40 pm

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DoctorWho8

Helvetica Neue Bold Extended or Heavy Extended works pretty well.  Or use Helvetica Bold and stretch it out to about 125%.
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

lorisarvendu

Quote from: DoctorWho8 on Aug 11, 2010, 04:08 am
Helvetica Neue Bold Extended or Heavy Extended works pretty well.  Or use Helvetica Bold and stretch it out to about 125%.
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff


Thanks for that.  I've had a look online and apart from the fact that I can't get it anywhere cheaper than about twenty quid, the P is still proportional.  I think I might try doing my own...

DoctorWho8

Helvetica is a standard font on Mac and Windows nowadays, at least in the US.
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

lorisarvendu

Quote from: DoctorWho8 on Aug 11, 2010, 03:44 pm
Helvetica is a standard font on Mac and Windows nowadays, at least in the US.
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff


Sadly not in the UK.

galacticprobe

Quote from: lorisarvendu on Aug 11, 2010, 10:22 pm
Quote from: DoctorWho8 on Aug 11, 2010, 03:44 pm
Helvetica is a standard font on Mac and Windows nowadays, at least in the US.
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff


Sadly not in the UK.


Does your computer have Arial as a font? It comes very close to Helvitica.

Dino.
"What's wrong with being childish?! I like being childish." -3rd Doctor, "Terror of the Autons"

hb88banzai

Aug 12, 2010, 07:45 am #20 Last Edit: Aug 17, 2010, 05:33 am by hb88banzai
Quote from: galacticprobe on Aug 12, 2010, 12:30 am

Does your computer have Arial as a font? It comes very close to Helvitica.

Dino.


Well, ignoring the typographic and aesthetic minefield of that statement, the capital C's are quite noticeably different between Helvetica and Arial (the terminations being horizontal with Helvetica and on the slant with Arial), though with the limited text sample involved the rest is passable (though the B's are also a bit noticeable).

I'm pretty sure Helvetica only comes standard with Macs these days (not Windows), but even with Helvetica, not all Helveticas are created equal. The Helvetica Neue font family was the closest I found back when I was looking. Haven't re-visited the top sign font search in quite awhile, however.

Regarding the letters in question on both Newbery and Yardley-Jones, I believe all the letters are the same variety of Helvetica on each respective sign (a slightly different version of the font on each - observe the B's), all that has been done is that the words/letters have been stretched as needed for effect, with those in the "PUBLIC CALL" area being significantly more stretched than the rest. It is possible, however, that the smaller characters are (in addition to the greater stretch) a slightly thinner member of the relevant font family - some experimentation would have to be done to rule out optical illusions, light bleed, etc.

With a given font you may even have to apply some stretching/scaling on the individual character level to achieve a close fit to the original, though you have to be very sparing with this so as not to make the stroke widths noticeably different.

DeductiblyBonkers

Sep 25, 2011, 10:30 pm #21 Last Edit: Sep 25, 2011, 10:33 pm by pepsiman98
For the TYJ sign, the font is more than likely some version of Helvetica. There is a free font used in the popular game Garry's Mod called Coolvetica that is essentially a tweaked version of Helvetica (The G's and P's are really the most of it) and matches up rather well to the photos of the sign. The spacing is a bit off, but that can always be fixed.

DoctorWho8

Actually you can Helvetica or Helvetica Neue from free font websites.  I tend to use www.dafont.com but Helvetica is a standard font for Mac and Windows.
Bill "the Doctor" Rudloff

galacticprobe

Sep 26, 2011, 05:51 am #23 Last Edit: Sep 26, 2011, 05:52 am by galacticprobe
Quote from: hb88banzai on Aug 12, 2010, 07:45 am
Quote from: galacticprobe on Aug 12, 2010, 12:30 am

Does your computer have Arial as a font? It comes very close to Helvitica.

Dino.


Well, ignoring the typographic and aesthetic minefield of that statement...


Erm... "Typographic and aesthetic minefield"? I wasn't aware that I had set down either of those. As we said in the Coast Guard: "WTF, Over?"

Dino.
"What's wrong with being childish?! I like being childish." -3rd Doctor, "Terror of the Autons"

DeductiblyBonkers

Mar 30, 2012, 11:14 pm #24 Last Edit: Jun 29, 2012, 07:10 pm by DeductiblyBonkers
After a bit of research into the matter, I can quite firmly conclude that the Newberry sign is Grotesque MT Bold Extended. It took a bit of moving around in Paint.net to get the letter spacing right, but here's the proof:
NewberryTopSign.png
The lettering on the sign itself seems to be hand-painted is handcut (thanks timerotor!), which would account for the discrepancies. (Except for the 'C' in 'POLICE', that one's my fault. >_<) I'll have a PDF up soon. ;D
(Interestingly, Grotesque was also the font family used for the original Doctor Who logo used throughout Hartnell's run as The Doctor.)

timerotor

thats a great find well done sir!
I took an original Tom baker sign from the Newberry box into an expert sign maker and printer and he told me that they sign had been hand cut and screen printed.
So well done you, you're absolutely right!get-attachment-2aspx.jpg the black is the same as the blue one shown here!
MBH timerotor  ;D
living, learning, loving, refurbing, & preserving!

DeductiblyBonkers

Ah, it's handcut, that's it. Thanks. ;D Do you think you could you give me the dimensions of that sign so I can make the PDF as accurate as possible?

Rassilons Rod

Mark, have you also had some dealings with the Newberry box or are you just lucky enough to have one of the signs? :)
In the cities in the streets there's a tension you can feel,
The breaking strain is fast approaching, guns and riots.
Politicians gamble and lie to save their skins,
And the press get fed the scapegoats,
Public Enema Number One.

timerotor

Mar 31, 2012, 01:14 pm #28 Last Edit: Apr 02, 2012, 10:28 pm by timerotor
Quote from: Pepsiman98 on Mar 31, 2012, 01:02 am
Ah, it's handcut, that's it. Thanks. ;D Do you think you could you give me the dimensions of that sign so I can make the PDF as accurate as possible?

I don't have the sign anymore, it's been mounted in the TYJ Tardis in Cardiff, it was on display at the convention.
So I no longer have it. Sorry, I will check my notes later to see if I have dimensions to share :-/
Quote from: rassilonsrod on Mar 31, 2012, 10:48 am
Mark, have you also had some dealings with the Newberry box or are you just lucky enough to have one of the signs? :)

The sign is from the Newberry prop as it was seen in season 19 - with this type of blue sign, it's not that Ive EVER had access to that particular prop (not since I was 8 years old along with everyone else at Longleat 83 - but I got there mega early and had a good look see)
I'm sure I can post something helpful, but as the sign is back on the TARDIS where it SHOULD be, it's  in the hands of the Beeb again - so It's kind of gone!
But in a good way- as long as it doesn't get stolen like all the others used to at TV centre, gggrrrrrrr.....
MBH
longleattardisphoto.jpg it's probably this sign here, or from this period. as it's a little too short lengthways for the TYJ box. (remember  the Newberry box had extended frames at either end - see pic!)

the sign writing should be slightly off centre if correct - take a good close look at screen grabs and photo's the 'P' of police should be almost in line with the vertical left hand window frame of the box, the 'P' of public call box - should be in line with the left hand edge of the centre dividing the doors... and the 'B' in box should be inline with the second window in... and the X should be in line with the right vertical window frame.
see picture.get-attachment-1aspx-1.jpgget-attachment-2aspx-3.jpg

hope this helps you scale it well. GOOD LUCK!
Timerotor  :)
living, learning, loving, refurbing, & preserving!

DeductiblyBonkers

Apr 03, 2012, 01:21 am #29 Last Edit: Jun 29, 2012, 07:11 pm by DeductiblyBonkers
Hello again! I was able to finish up the PDFs tonight, so here they are:

Newberry
Tom Yardley-Jones

I did my best to make these as accurate as possible, using timerotor's dimensions and averaging out a blue color from multiple images of the TYJ box among other things to get these as close to the original props as I could. I hope you guys find these useful. ;D Let me know if they need adjusting, I'd be more than happy to oblige.

EDIT: I feel that I should mention that these are 1/1 scaled, so they ought to be good for printing too.