Month: September 2017

Meet the Font Detectives Who Ferret Out Fakery

Jason Tate

Glenn Fleishman, writing for Wired:

What does international political corruption have to do with type design? Normally, nothing—but that’s little consolation for the former prime minister of Pakistan. When Nawaz Sharif and his family came under scrutiny earlier this year thanks to revelations in the Panama Papers, the smoking gun in the case was a font. The prime minister’s daughter, Maryam Sharif, provided an exculpatory document that had been typeset in Calibri—a Microsoft font that was only released for general distribution nearly a year after the document had allegedly been signed and dated.

A “Fontgate” raged.

The Epic Life and Tragic Death of Matt Bellinger

Planes Mistaken for Stars
Jason Tate

Jason Heller, writing about the passing of Planes Mistaken for Stars’ Matt Bellinger:

A basic obituary isn’t enough to sum up a life, let alone one that had as much impact as Matt’s.

When I met Matt in 1998, I had yet to even dream of being a journalist. Back then, I worked the cash register at Wax Trax, while Matt and the other members of Planes lived in Peoria, Illinois, where they had grown up. Their singer-guitarist, Gared O’Donnell, visited Denver frequently in the ’90s to see his mom, who lived in Colorado.