Hi.

I need to identify commercially available fonts that match (as closely
as possible) the logo, a heads, b heads, c heads and body text of the
front page of the Wall Street Journal. The best answer will include
online sources for the fonts (cheap fonts being better than expensive
ones!)

My primary goal is an accurate match. Please dont' take the question
if you don't believe you can find one (I'm aware that the Journal
probably has the whole thing custom made).

Thanks!

Hello sethgodin-ga,

This is a very tough question that has been raised in discussion
groups for years without very satisfactory answers. Fortunately, there
is fairly up-to-date information available for some of the fonts
you?re looking for because of the recent redesign of the Wall Street
Journal in 2002.

I?ve found several papers and articles that discussed the significance
and details of the redesign. These articles revealed that one of the
main results was that most of the paper now uses only three typefaces:
WSJ Scotch Compressed, Franklin Gothic and Retina. Digging further,
I?ve discovered that the body text is called Dow Text and that the
masthead is a variation of Clarendon Condensed.

Finding ?look alike? fonts for the custom Wall Street Journal fonts
you?re looking for can be accomplished by using Identifont. If you
know the name of a font you can identify multiple styles and versions
of it and locate several sources for purchasing them online. I think
you will be able to find satisfactory ?typefaces in the spirit of the
Wall Street Journal? using this site.

I?ve grouped my sources below to make it easier to follow my reasoning
for my recommendations. Please don?t hesitate to ask for clarification
if any of this needs expansion.

Best wishes for your project.

~ czh ~ 


============================
WALL STREET JOURNAL REDESIGN
============================

http://poynteronline.org/content/content_view.asp?id=3638
May. 6, 2002
Behind the Redesign: WSJ

They excavated an assortment of typefaces, including Caslon, Scotch
Roman and several different sans serif faces. They found that over the
years as various typefaces were added to the typographic system, the
paper had become jumbled and inconsistent. To solve that problem, they
streamlined the typographic structure by deciding on three main faces.

Scotch was the original typeface for headlines, used from the
beginning. It was an important face and people identified it as The
Wall Street Journal.

For that reason, it was retained for headlines, but redrawn to make it
look less Victorian and more contemporary. It was redrawn and enhanced
by The Font Bureau. It is now called WSJ Scotch Compressed.

Multiple line headlines of Scotch Compressed were kept and two-line
headlines were added on the front page, allowing for more information
in the headlines.

Franklin Gothic was preserved and redrawn to refresh its look, and
used for charts, graphs, inside boxes and other visual elements like
interior labels, providing good contrast to the elegant Scotch. The
bold weight that Franklin Gothic provides is the kind of weight that
draws the eye and provides a strong navigational device for the
reader.

Because stock listings were so important to the paper, research was
done to find the most readable face. Retina was chosen. This is the
first time Retina has been used in a newspaper. It was redrawn by
Tobias Frere Jones of the Hoefler Type Foundry.

-------------------------------------------------


http://www.asne.org/index.cfm?ID=4339 
Redesigning the Classics

In terms of the typography, we sought to look at the typefaces that
most people would recognize and identify with. Scotch came out as one
typeface that if you blink and look at it you?ll say, ?This is The
Wall Street Journal.? The typography is very simple, three typefaces
working hand-in-hand: Scotch, Franklin Gothic and Retina. To go to
three typefaces from the variety of typefaces we had before was an
accomplishment.

The Scotch was cleaned up. There was a lot of work with tracking and
so on. Franklin Gothic also underwent its own change. Retina is a
typeface you may not have heard of, but it was a typeface that finally
was selected for all of what I call finger reading

-------------------------------------------------


http://www.poynter.org/resource/8600/PRFALL02.pdf
http://www.poynter.org/dg.lts/id.8447/content.content_view.htm
The Poynter Report ? Fall 2002
The Grey Ladies Get a Facelift
The Journal Is Dead ? Long Live the Journal (page 5)

-------------------------------------------------


http://www.identifont.com/
Welcome to Identifont®, the unique font identifier that enables you to
identify a font from a sample by answering a series of simple
questions. It is ideal if you want to match an existing typeface, or
identify a typeface you have seen in a publication.

Identifont includes information about fonts from most of the major
type libraries, including Adobe, Agfa-Monotype, Berthold, Bitstream,
Elsner+Flake, Font Bureau, FontFont, ITC, Letraset, Linotype, P22, and
URW++.


====================================================
LOGO / MASTHEAD FONT ? CLARENDON CONDENSED VARIATION
====================================================

http://shinntype.com/Assets/Depts/Essays/WSJ.html
REDESIGN, WHAT REDESIGN?
RENOVATION MAY BETTER DESCRIBE THE SUBTLE CHANGES IN THE WALL STREET
JOURNAL?S FIRST MAKEOVER SINCE THE SECOND WORLD WAR.

Redesign is perhaps the wrong word, ?renovation? is more apt; it?s a
term used by San Francisco type designer Jim Parkinson to describe how
he?s redrawn the Journal?s masthead. Today, those good old Clarendon
Condensed letters are a tad wider, and slightly closer together than
they were yesterday, for a touch more oomph.

-------------------------------------------------


http://www.identifont.com/find?font=clarendon
http://www.identifont.com/show?2SA
Clarendon
Information about the typeface Clarendon and where to buy it.


=====================================
HEADLINE FONT ? WSJ SCOTCH COMPRESSED
=====================================

http://www.fontbureau.com/fonts/specimen.tpl?cart=10749168194458978&fontname=ScotchFB
Scotch FB
9 styles 
This Family is part of the FB Studio Library, a series of fonts
available exclusively from Font Bureau.

-----------------------------------------


http://www.identifont.com/show?S2
Scotch Roman
Information about the typeface Scotch Roman and where to buy it.



============================================
CHARTS, GRAPHS, BOXES FONT ? FRANKLIN GOTHIC
============================================

http://www.identifont.com/show?NR
ITC Franklin Gothic
Information about the typeface ITC Franklin Gothic and where to buy it.

-------------------------------------------------


http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/findafont/a/fontaliases_f.htm
Font Aliases - F
Lookalike Fonts That Start With F


============================
STOCK LISTINGS FONT ? RETINA
============================

http://www.typography.com/press/pr_04_09_02.html
New York, 9 April 2002
Wall Street Journal Launches Redesign With New Fonts from HTF

Today's issue of The Wall Street Journal, featuring the newspaper's
most dramatic redesign in sixty years, introduces the HTF Retina?
typeface by Tobias Frere-Jones. Created especially for the Journal,
Retina is a family of newspaper types specifically engineered to
succeed in small sizes.

-------------------------------------------------


http://www.typography.com/
For Newspapers
Retina, designed for the stock listings in The Wall Street Journal, is
now available for your newspaper too.



=========================
BODY TEXT FONT ? DOW TEXT
=========================

http://www.identifont.com/show?12J
David Berlow
Information about the font designer David Berlow and his typefaces.

His type designs include Charcoal, Gadget, and Techno for Apple
Computer, ITC Franklin Gothic Condensed and ITC Franklin Gothic
Compressed for ITC, Dow Text for the Wall Street Journal, and the Giza
family for Font Bureau.

-------------------------------------------------


http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=811617d5.0108211021.74a01a87%40posting.google.com&rnum=23&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dwall%2Bstreet%2Bjournal%2Bfonts%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26selm%3D811617d5.0108211021.74a01a87%2540posting.google.com%26rnum%3D23

Question: Is there a font that matches the one used in the print
edition of the wall street journal.

Answer: It's a font that was created specifically for the WSJ called Dow Jones.

-------------------------------------------------


http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=344E73F4.42CA%40howzit.com&rnum=24&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dwall%2Bstreet%2Bjournal%2Bfonts%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26selm%3D344E73F4.42CA%2540howzit.com%26rnum%3D24

Question: Can someone tell me what the "Wall Street Journal" font is called?

Answer: It's the Latino Elongated (David Quay 1988). ? Two fonts that
are more or less similar (thin and sharp serifs) are Birch (part of
Woodtypes) and Venice.

-------------------------------------------------


http://www.identifont.com/show?3G4
Latino Elongated
Information about the typeface Latino Elongated and where to buy it.

-------------------------------------------------

http://www.identifont.com/show?GE
Birch
Information about the typeface Birch and where to buy it.



===============
SEARCH STRATEGY
===============

wall street journal type fonts
The Hoefler Type Foundry, Inc. wall street journal
"wall street journal" headline font
wall street journal fonts
franklin gothic wall street journal

It's hard to imagine a better, clearer, faster answer.

Many thanks.

Hello sethgodin-ga,

I'm glad that my answer is useful to you. Thank you for the tip and five stars.

~ czh ~

Just wondering if this is really Seth Godin...

If so, would love to work with you on some research - I did a bit of
work for Emanuel Rosen on "The Anatomy of Buzz..."

thanks,
ragingacademic