I'm making this list so we can share our findings! SEGA Logo - Yagi Double (1968) - Digitalized as Asteroid Sonic Logo (JAP/EU) - Syntax UltraBlack (1968) Sonic Logo (US) - Syntax UltraBlack (1968) - The shape inside of the 'O' was rotated and the result was also altered into the 'C'. the Hedgehog (JAP/EU) - Univers Extra Black (1957) the Hedgehog (US) - Univers Bold Condensed (1957) Sonic 1 Sonic Team Presents - Broadway (1928) Level Select Menu - Flamenco Inline (1974) - The uppercase Y and M gave it away, the design had the serifs removed and the 0 received a slash. Even with the low resolution you can see the entire font is curved like a left parenthesis '(' and that shows on the final result in the game (specially perceivable on the 'L'). Title Cards - Century (1975) Game Over - Unknown - Digitalized in 1995 as Warlock Medium HUD - Unknown Sonic 2 Sonic and Tails in - Unknown Title Cards - Roco (1973) (Gaslight is a pirate rename!) Game Over - Unknown - Digitalized in 1995 as Warlock Medium Level Select Menu - Koloss (1928) - Some features were simplified/removed due to the low pixel count HUD - Unknown Sonic 3 Title Cards - Playboy (1975) - Digitalized as Plaza (Andes is a Pirate rename!) I'll edit this as I finish my compilations. Did any of you find other fonts related to Sonic Games?
I would very much doubt that any 8x8 font is based on anything. They're extremely easy to make and not the sort of thing you'd do research for - any similarities will be coincidental.
That'll be a definition of "coincidence", then. They may have had a big book of 70s typefaces to copy from, but when I've been working with 8x8 pixel fonts in the past, I've made things that look like the Sonic 2 font by accident. There's only so much you can do at that resolution.
Not a coincidence. All these fonts are from the --- extremely known at the time --- Letraset type catalogue. They distributed books with all the fonts so you could order the transparent sheets with rubber transfers to put them on your layouts. The origins are known from the subtleties. In the case of the S1 level select, you know it's the right font by the really unusual Y and the assymetrical M. The curved aspect of the font -- like a parenthesis is present on all characters too. You can have similar results on a character-by-character analysis, but when you look at what features are present on all the shapes and happen to find some idiosyncrasies from the original alphabet that made through the pixelization process -- you know you found a match.
THANK YOU. I see this one a lot, and I've been dying to know what it's called. I've just been calling it "Sonic 3 Font" until now.
