Apple has released an updated version of its Mac logo, and has posted new usage guidelines and licensing agreements on its web site.
Comments
Typeset text sits on an invisible "Baseline". Letters that are flat on the bottom sit on this baseline. Letters that are curved on the bottom sit slightly below this baseline.
The version on the website is probably larger that it would be in actual use, so the effect seems a little exaggerated.
The files are supplied in Illustrator 7 eps format.
They come in both 2D flat look and the rendered 3D look .
Logos come in both horizontal and vertical styles, as
well as many different resolutions for the rendered ones.
Very slick and professionally done, esp. when you really
zoom into the hi-resolution files. They output to high quality
injet or film nicely.
I mean, why is that so hard to fix. Geez.
I think you can be pretty sure - given the obssessiveness of all the (good) graphic designers I've known - that this is not an oversight but deliberate.
The baseline effect described earlier could be changed by the designer if he/she wanted to -- must have decided it's better this way.
But they fixed it in 9.1...looks great there.
It looks more like it's the loop in the 'a' that droops below the baseline, making the 'M' look like it's hovering in comparison. Definitely deliberate. Maybe it's supposed to emphasize the "a" sound or some rubbish like that--I won't pretend any more to know what the typographist thought.
-dirkpitt
Fixed? The 'a' is, but now the '9' juts below the baseline. Incidentally, the drooping 'a' remains permanently drooping on the iMac logo underneath your screen, for those who own iMacs. I suppose one could scrape off the silkscreen just a bit and "fix" it, but that is an exercise left to the reader... (I like mine as it is)
-dirkpitt
... to look at the logo page, it is written in the same text style: "Mac Logo Program." Look at how the characters with curved bottoms ALSO droop below the baseline a bit. There's no mistake here, it's how the font was created.
What I'd really like to thank you for is that now that you've drawn my attention to it, I'll forever notice it now. :-) THANKS! LOL
But they fixed it in 9.1...looks great there.
Well, maybe they actually broke it in 9.1. You know what they say, one user's bug is a programmer's feature (or something like that).
The font is definitely designed that way. The reason people have noticed it in the recent past is that the word "Mac" has one flat-bottomed letter followed only by curved-bottom letters, so the M appears to float. "iMac" is similarly affected between the first and last two letters. Macs (and the OS) used to never say "Mac", but always "Macintosh" (like what's written on the screen bezel of my Powerbook), where this vertical kern effect balances out better. Whether it should be manually tweaked for words like "Mac" and "Logo" in large print is a matter for people much geekier than us to discuss on comp.fonts. ;)
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Unlevel Text in Mac OS
Now if they could only make that "M" from MacOS in line with the other text...All their operating systems prior to 9.1 all shipping with that dumb "M" higher than the rest of the letters...then all of a sudden comes March 24, and on the MacOS X startup, behold the unlevelness continues. I mean, why is that so hard to fix. Geez.