It was Adobe’s Technology Summit this week for us here. The Tech Summit is an internal event where many of the engineers gather to discuss and talk about the interesting products and technologies they’re working on. It’s an invaluable opportunity to meet in person many of the people we regularly contact only by e-mail, and it’s a great occasion to learn more about what’s going on in other areas of the company.
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13 years and 9 months is the average amount of time that the current members of the Adobe Type Team have been here. The team consists of 14 members spread across our planet. Three members are in our Tokyo, Japan office, one is in our Beijing, China office, and the remaining ten are in the San Jose, California headquarters. What’s more, I believe that all but one of us have been in no other team since joining Adobe.
I joined Adobe in July of 1991, which means that I celebrated my 19th year just last month. Still, I am the third senior member, in terms of tenure at Adobe. Two or three others are right on my tail. This is a good thing.
So, what does this mean or imply? In my opinion and experience, this simply means that the Adobe Type Team consists of fourteen world-class people who have a strong passion and dedication to type and typography, as evidenced by their long tenure at Adobe, and perhaps more so by their equally-long tenure as members of the Adobe Type Team. There is a lot of history and expertise here, and being part of such a team is a pleasure and honor, and brings great satisfaction. I am sure that others in the team feel the same. Needless to say, working with our valued customers—some of whom work at type foundries themselves—is an equally pleasurable experience. Whether it is design, development, or testing, our work is never done, and perhaps more importantly, it is never done in a vacuum.
(BTW, I wrote a short Perl program a couple of years ago that outputs the average amount of time, in terms of years and months, that the Adobe Type Team members have been here. A recent execution of this program is what inspired this post.)
Here is a wonderful chance to take type and make it dynamic! 
A few weeks ago, our friends at FontGear launched a new contest and we invite you to combine type and video in a way that moves us all. And while you’re at it, you can win some cash as well.
And fonts don’t have to be the key theme. Pick one that interests you, but make sure that your videos share some focus on the creative and obvious use of typographic concepts, subjects, and storylines. Entry is free!
Want to add some extra zip to your work? We’ve heard that Adobe has a few products like Adobe Photoshop, Premiere, Flash or After Effects which can help you to be your most creative. But we digress. Whatever your choice of tools, you have a chance to win big. First place takes $1000, Second place $500, and Third place can win you $250.
A jury of industry professionals, featuring Adobe’s own Ginna Baldassarre, will choose the three best font-related videos submitted. So get your type on some tape or your glyphs on some clips, but make sure you enter by September 30, 2010. Time, like a film reel, is always running out!
“Garamond and Zebrawood walk into a bar, they have a few drinks and one thing leads to another… (yes they were hanging out at the same bar, believe it or not).”
“Create from scratch, the typographic love child of:
Garamond and Zebrawood”
See what Christian Robertson and other type designers came up with, on Typophile.
It’s been a remarkably busy typographic news week. First, we hear that the letters of the famous Hollywood sign are decaying due to global warming.
Then, we learn that Erik Spiekermann has been knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
In related news, today is also the 8th anniversary of The Guardian‘s “Return to San Seriffe” article. For more about this amazing island nation, see Wikipedia.
On a day like this, I start to think anything is possible!
Just too weird and fun not to share, Extensis’ new time-wasting web site that’s part “what font are you” quiz and part showing what would happen if fonts were people and tried to date.
Amanda Paull from Extensis tried to post this as a comment, but it’s too cool to hide away like that. 
“Thought your readers might have some fun with this on Valentine’s day: its a font matching/ dating game thingy. Hard to explain, but a fun diversion for font fanatics…”
Did you ever watch the TV series “The Critic”? It was a cartoon series comedy about a movie reviewer (Jon Lovitz) who ended almost every (parody) review with “It stinks!” Sometimes I feel like a pale imitation of Lovitz when I write a post like this. But then, there’s a lot of stuff out there that stinks (Sturgeon’s Law), so what can I say. Maybe the approach of Christmas makes me feel more like the Grinch?
This time, it’s a “green” font. It turns out that “green” means… condensed. Yup, that’s it. Well, okay, they also added a couple of branches to the cap “T” to make it look more tree-like, and remind you that you’re being “green” by using a condensed sans-serif font to save paper. Now, let’s back up to the beginning of the story, and be a bit less critical for a moment.
Note that this is not part of my day job, and any views expressed on this topic are my own and do not reflect any position of Adobe’s on these issues.
This is a long one, but the punchline is that Dr. David Hailey has published some new analysis of 2004′s infamous purported Bush National Guard memos, with access to much better copies of them than have previously been available to anyone outside CBS. Although I disagree with his conclusions, having better samples has allowed me to do some analysis of my own, and I do believe we’ve got even more certainty about the typeface: it’s Times Roman (from Linotype, distributed heavily by Adobe and Apple) rather than Times New Roman (from Monotype, distributed heavily by Microsoft).
[Update, later same day: So, I'm reading through the Wikipedia entry on authenticity issues (cited below), and I run into this bit. "Desktop magazine in Australia analysed the documents in its November 2004 issue and concluded that the typeface was a post-1985 version of Times Roman, rather than Times New Roman...." Well, so much for my write-up being a scoop! All I can say is that I don't recall that bit being there the last time I read the entire Wikipedia article... sigh.]
