4 ms·
I was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal around 2000±a year or so about Wingdings when there was a moral panic about what happened if you typed NYC in the w
by dhosek 6y ago
I was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal around 2000±a year or so about Wingdings when there was a moral panic about what happened if you typed NYC in the wingdings font (I was editing a typography magazine at the time which is how the reporter found me). I patiently explained that the arrangement of characters in dingbat fonts is generally arbitrary with patterns generally dictated by character code more than anything else and that as someone who knew Chuck Bigelow and Kris Holmes, I could vouch that they were not, in fact, anti-semites.
- dhosek 6y ago(There was an article I read, I think in the Chicago Tribune, around that time which indicated that by having my name appear in the newspaper I had slightly increased my probability of being kidnapped. My probability, according to their formula, was still less than 1% and true to form, I have yet to be kidnapped.)
- jansan 6y agoI disagree with the arbitrary arrangement of characters. If you write NYC in Webdings, you have an eye, a heart and a skyline, which I read as "I love New York". Could be a coincidence, but very unlikely IMO.
- senkora 6y agoThat is intentional and was a direct reaction to the original controversy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webdings https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webdings > Following the controversy over possible anti-Semitic messages in the Wingdings font, Connare intentionally rendered the Webdings character sequence "NYC" as an eye, a heart, and a city skyline, referring to the I Love New York logo.
- jansan 6y agoThanks, I always assumed (without checking) that Webdings preceeded Wingdings and thought this would have been a tasteless easter egg of a font designer. If Wingdings existed before Wingdings, all this makes more sense.