Looking for a font...

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Leo

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Enclosed a picture from an Estes decal sheet. I'm having no luck with finding the correct font.
Can anyone help?
 

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Thanks Gary. Been looking for 2 weeks already with all the tools I could find with google. No luck....
 
Also a better quality scan would help a lot. And save it as a PNG (8bit) or a GIF. They use a different kind of compression that is better at preserving edge detail. And do increase contrast to make the letters as sharp a possible.

Good luck,


Tony
 
Arial Black: Below or Arial something or another. Arial bold has thinner letters. img016.jpg
 
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Thank you Jeff. Unfortunately some of the letters and numbers are off. E.g. R and 1 and all the letters are too fat.

Thanks Gary. I've already refined the scan. I've been scroll searching for fonts for days now. Clicked thousands of times for sure :)

This is what I have so far. Looks like it's the closest I will get.

estes_font_alternativ-jpg.365647
 

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Arial Black: Below or Arial something or another. Arial bold has thinner letters.
The "1's" are way off in the part number, but it's like everything else I looked at, close but no cigar. Leo, that part number is for a Nomad decal sheet. I think the rocket was in production from 1980 - 82, so your font is at least 36 years old.
 
That's very, very close. Can you trim the decal to get the letters closer together?
 
Jonathan, that is close. This is what it shows in my program.

estes_font_alternativ_1-jpg.365650


For some odd reason the letters M and B are not right.
 

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Well, I spent too much time on this decal so today I'm calling it done. Near perfect replica.... Now time to print some replicas on decal paper.

The font I ended up with is "swansea".

Estes_Decal_Plain_Test.jpg
 
Here's a version done in Illustrator using your font with some manual work on spacing and some letter shapes (R and 1):

Estes decal small.png

But that's only at 72dpi, a print version would have a lot more pixels.


Tony
 
Looks good! I have not downloaded that font, so I'm not sure if it'll blend the M & B like it did to you.

I use Microsoft Publisher for the majority of my stuff (playing around on it at work).

Would love to have Illustrator or InkScape to use here in the office.
 
The completely busted kerning on the original decal sheet suggests almost proves that they used rub-on dry transfer lettering to do it. So you're probably really looking for fonts from old Letraset sheets. Letraset has morphed into a font company Identifont, which has quite a nice font finder. But knowing it was probably Letraset transfers, and what the common stuff was, I'm pretty sure it's good old Helvetica Bold. The shapes of the B, R, 5, and 1 are very convincing.

https://www.identifont.com/find?font=Helvetica+Bold&q=Go
 
The completely busted kerning on the original decal sheet suggests almost proves that they used rub-on dry transfer lettering to do it. So you're probably really looking for fonts from old Letraset sheets. Letraset has morphed into a font company Identifont, which has quite a nice font finder. But knowing it was probably Letraset transfers, and what the common stuff was, I'm pretty sure it's good old Helvetica Bold. The shapes of the B, R, 5, and 1 are very convincing.

https://www.identifont.com/find?font=Helvetica+Bold&q=Go
Hmmm, I just used this site and this is what I found.
https://www.identifont.com/list?17+...RCB+1+2RB8+1+LM+1+2AA4+1+2AA3+1+2AA1+1+2AA2+1
 
The completely busted kerning on the original decal sheet suggests almost proves that they used rub-on dry transfer lettering to do it. ..<snip>.. I'm pretty sure it's good old Helvetica Bold. The shapes of the B, R, 5, and 1 are very convincing....
While I agree it was probably dry transfer letters based on the letter spacing and alignment, I have to disagree that it is Helvetica. The Estes font has rounded edges while Helvetica is very square. The counters of the letters S and 3 are also very different, especially on the number 3.

But it's good to hear from someone who remembers the old Letraset sheets. I used to use them all the time on models and still have some sheets somewhere among my modeling supplies.

It's important to look at the corners of the fonts - if they are square, it's unlikely it's the same font.

Tony

Estes font on right, Helvetia on the right:
Estes-vs-Helvitica.png
 
They are the same. You have to remember that decals are silkscreened, which rounds the corners of everything! (and warps stuff bi-axially due to fabric stretch as the ink is pulled). I've digitally restored several decal sheets in excruciating detail and have seen a lot of such effects. If there were lowercase letters involved at this size, you'd be able to see that not all of the "i" dots would even be the same size.

[edit] Another thing to keep in mind is that in the old days, fonts were hand-drawn (or perhaps pen-plotted in a certain era) oversize and then optically reduced via a copy camera. At some point, Indentifont probably digitally remastered things, which likely introduced some subtle changes from the "ultra classic" Letraset fonts that date from the pre-digital era.
 
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Here is a better example of a free download I got from "What Font Is" The 7's and the R's are off, but is pretty close.
upload_2018-11-1_20-22-57.jpeg
 
Helvetica was coming to mind, but I couldn't clearly recall it. I'm surprised that it's not a system font anymore. It sure is a classic. Just hasn't stood the test of time I guess.
 
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