Once upon a time, a designer asks —or it is asked of them— "What's the typeface used for The Princess Bride?" The designer invariaby replies, "I don't know offhand but I recognize it. I know that I've seen it before. I'll look into it and get back to you."
Hours of careful research —or is it days?— yields the same answer every time: there is no such typeface. What you believed to be a commonplace, off the shelf solution (or perhaps a sligthly modified one) wasn't that at all. How does something which presents itself as wholly familiar prove to be utterly non-existent? Beats me. Some questions in life are like that.
So what does a designer do then? Be a designer of course and make one. Which is what I did when Mr. Eric Skillman asked the age-old question of me in regard to the Criterion Collection edition of The Princes Bride. The delightful, storybook edition is available now.
