It's a pretty cool idea, but I just tried out Times New Roman just to see how it worked, and it returned Vendome Condensed, which looks rather different (hopefully this link works):

[www.identifont.com]

Still worth a bookmark for next time I need to track down a font though.

brackenthebox

This is so cool!

Thomasmrph

I've been looking for something like this!

homerjay

@chabis: Did you use the feature where you tell it what characters you had access to. That terminated for me after ~20 questions with "JUST DO IT." I'm not sure that the results are that accurate, and it suggested 30 different fonts, but at least it finished.

brackenthebox

"... after a maximum of 15 questions ..."
Well, of course only if you actually can answer the questions :-)

I wanted to know, how the font is called which N*** uses for there "JUST DO IT." advertisment. As I only can answer questions about the given letters, Identifont asked and asked and I gave up after question number 76!

chabis

I used to work for a monogramming/print screening company as their graphics artist, and remember finding this site when I was looking for what a particular font is. What The Font was another site I used frequently. You'd be amazed at how particular some companies are about getting a font just right when making monogrammed hats or print screened shirts.

After a while, though, I stopped using these sites and simply scanned their source material, then went down the font list in CorelDRAW (any Illustrator lovers out there can go fly a kite) and visually match the characters to find the right font. I actually got pretty good at doing it that way.

Oh, and yeah, sometimes you can try all you want, but this site won't give you the font you're looking for.

CajunGuy

Identifont has never worked for me. The best place to have fonts identified is the WhatTheFont forums -- chock full of type nerds competing to be the first to identify a sample.

greensweater

@brackenthebox: Bingo!
I've missed that :-O

After 22 questions it gave me about 30 results, but in the end I could not find the exact match. Anyway: Thank you!

chabis

@chareverie: It may be able to identify a few obscure fonts, but mostly it's for commercially available fonts. So, yeah, you'd have to buy most of them.

CajunGuy

Would this site be able to identify fonts made by freelancers? I'm under the impression that this site tries to match up fonts that you would have to purchase.

chareverie

avant garde gothic pro includes all the alternates from Herb Lubalin's original design {/frothing}

What The Font searches on both pay fonts and any fonts from dafont.com which BTW is the best free fonts site around IMO.

greensweater

I've tried both services, but for the life of me I can't nail down the name of this font:

[link]

/also features prominently in "Rock Band" videogame menus
//can anyone shed some light on it? ^_^

AdvisoryCapacity

i'm afraid to say this site is spectacularly useless. as someone mentioned earlier, the only way to resolve such id issues is to get some frothing nerds on the forum to jump in.

Tactical-Incineration-Development

@greensweater: Thanks! Months of searching and you answer my question within 20 minutes on lifehacker. :)

AdvisoryCapacity

What a shame. This couldn't even identify Comic Sans. It did pull up a pretty nice looking font though. [www.identifont.com]

Amalas

@CajunGuy: Figured as much.

chareverie

@Amalas: It identified Comic Sans straight away for me, but I managed to get VAG Rounded Black too when I went back and changed my answer for the handwritten question. And now I know what to use when I want that fridge-magnet look, so thanks for stumbling across that one.
@brackenthebox: I didn't get Times New Roman either, but it did suggest Pelham DT, which is remarkably close—probably a clone.
Identifont is actually pretty useful when there isn't a type expert to hand, so long as you have enough sample letters that are large enough to see the details clearly, and know that many company logos use specifically designed typefaces that don't necessarily feature full alphabets.

Obfuscate Penguin

Been using this for probably 5 years now. Nice idea, but unless you have a huge character set to go on, it's not very accurate. Whatthefont, on the other hand works pretty well.

DeleteYourself

I just tried to identify my first font , I used the advert to the left "Upgrade your life" came back with "FF Disturbance" .. was that the right one ?

Kevin.leroy

I just picked a font in Microsoft Word, followed the steps for identifying fonts. Its really really easy, and it got it right every time. Its neat to be able to figure out what font someone is using if you want to duplicate it.

circuitpirate

I haven't been able to live without a similar (not sure whether original) service from Linotype for several years now, and I have come to realize that these programs will only identify a font if it has been clearly classified. Usually pro fonts would have much better description and definition and would easily be identifiable compared to a hundred or so knock-offs done every day.

schajee