'Font detective' - silent 'heroes'

Writing is one of the indispensable means of communication and information exchange in modern life today. However, besides the main purpose mentioned above, the writing also helped to reveal many stories behind the scenes, from helping police to track down the clues to the task of verifying the accuracy of the document . All scripts play a particularly important role. Each of us possesses the same type of writing, or fonts in each print, all contain features that cannot be mixed, and that is the premise for a department. The study specializes in research on characteristics as well as differences in each type of writing, playing an important role in many areas of life. Here, I would like to temporarily call those who are skilled in this science the 'font detectives'.

There is a famous 'font detective' operating in the field of identification as well as verifying the authenticity of rare historical documents, ancient editions containing immeasurable cultural values. That is the man named Thomas Phinney. Thomas Phinney possesses 'talent' that can detect scams or impersonation by looking at fonts and text layout. In this article, we will 'talk' to Thomas Phinney to Learn more about his mysterious and interesting work - a professional font detective.

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In 2017, a man from Canada named Gerald McGoey applied for bankruptcy to his company. Bankruptcy records came years after his Ontaria-based telecommunications company failed to do business. McGoey is a wealthy man, holding a lot of real estate, but the loss-making business has caused him to fall into debt, to sell off property to repay debt and maintain life. McGoey wants to keep the house and farm by the lake in Muskoka, these assets are entrusted to McGoey's children.

Bankruptcy records, including those related to Gerald McGoey's property, were filed with the court. Realizing the unusual thing in the important papers, the court had to "rely on" the help of Thomas Phinney, who had the nickname "font detective". Phinney was then CEO of FontLab, a business specializing in font design based in Portland, USA.

The lawyers' instincts were right, after a few days of research, Thomas Phinney quickly discovered an abnormality in McGoey's papers. Accordingly, the information in the mansion ownership document at Muskoka that McGoey gave his children shows that this requirement was made in 1995. However, the font used in the document It's Microsoft, which was published in 2007. So, a document made in 1995, but used 2007 fonts, and that's the unusual point that Thomas Phinney found. Not only that, the farm ownership file filed by McGoey also contained a contradiction that was hard to explain when the document was thought to have been completed in 2004, but used fonts'. Calibri '- until 2007 was released by Microsoft. There is obviously fraud here because even though McGoey has a working acquaintance at Microsoft and has the right to use the previous release of this font, in fact, the Calibri typeface has undergone many uses. For, in particular, once changed the digital design in 2005, thus, the use of new designed fonts since 2004 is an impossible thing to do.

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The irregularities that Thomas Phinney found will be clearly stated in the trial. Of course, fonts are not the only evidence used in court proceedings, and for the case of entrepreneur McGoey, too, there are many other conflicts that must be found to clarify. The case, however, in this case, the anomaly in the use of fonts on important documents and papers will be one of the decisive factors for the end result. This is one of many papers and documents that Phinney helped clarify.

Thus it can be seen that the contribution of "font detectives" is very important in many aspects of life, especially with regard to legal disputes. There are not many people like Thomas Phinney in the world - those who own not only sophisticated eyes but also a treasure of massive knowledge about letters.

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Thomas Phinney used to be a long time manager at Adobe. His work and life went away without a turning point in 1999. In that year, Adobe entangled some complicated legal-related scandals, and Adobe's attorney proposed The staff in the company asked me to study the anomalies of some documents and papers related to the incident. Prior to that suggestion, Phinney was the only individual interested in the legitimacy and integrity of the document through fonts as well as how it was printed. After the incident, Thomas Phinney realized that he was particularly interested in the way the words were presented and that this gave him a "left hand" skill unlike anyone else.

This "font detective" currently holds a master's degree in printing, and is also a master in applying design experience, working with fonts to assess the legitimacy of documents. This makes Thomas Phinney sometimes work as an experienced culture, historian, and expert, to evaluate the legitimacy of artworks and antiques with high historical value. Sometimes he turned him into a professional criminal, taking part in the success of many cases.

Add an important example of font validation. Waldseemüller map, published in 1507, is said to be the first map to accurately set the latitude and longitude of the earth, and also the first map in the world to use the name 'America' for Europe. America. Waldseemüller map can only create 1000 unique editions, one of which is a valuable special copy being kept by the Smithsonian museum. The mystery of this age-old map is that although the author has been identified, the information about who printed it and when it is printed is still a big question mark.

In the hope of clarifying this mystery, Elizabeth Harris, the director of the Smithsonian Museum, decided to open a large-scale investigation. He and his colleagues studied and listed all printer models using the characters appearing in Waldseemüller map, equivalent to 5 fonts used in this map. The team then conducted a test to see which fonts were added to the map and added in what time period. At the same time, the team also collected and analyzed information on printing habits used in Giorgburg, Germany at the time the map was created, as well as checking what was unusual in the text structure. version or not After many months of hardship, Elizabeth Harris's research team has also found extremely valuable information: this rare Waldseemüller map is made up of 2 main parts, in which the overall content The map was printed at the same time and published in 1507, but a large number of symbols and captions were added to print a long time later, at least after 1515.

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Besides historical value, the characteristics of fonts can also help reflect the real world situation. For example, playwright William Shakespeare's name tends to be printed in a larger font size each year when he becomes more famous. Besides, the later the script for Shakespeare's plays used larger and clearer fonts, showing the growing concern of society for these works.

Thus, 'font detectives' who want to clarify the details of a document through fonts need to have profound knowledge of the historical as well as cultural-social context when the document is written. out, with the core still lies in "identifying the character of each word".

In addition, many "font detectives" have also cooperated with police investigators in cases involving handwriting, making an important contribution to removing the bottleneck of the case. We often have the phrase "handwriting, human streak", handwriting can reveal a lot of important information about personality and psychological state of the writer. Besides the lawyers, Thomas Phinney is one of the few individuals who can argue with the court, convince the judge about the accuracy of the paper thanks to the character of each word. While it is important, written assessment is a really complicated and dry job, so not many people take the effort to pursue this career seriously. Because of this, Phinney's work is still getting busier than ever, and now he has to handle at least 4 cases of verifying fonts and words every month.

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What do you think about becoming a 'font detective'? Leave comments in the comment section below.