Adobe NFNTs?
Don't trust Adobe as far as you can throw your Lino when it comes to font
references….there are NO ABSOLUTES!
EXAMPLE 1: for the longest time (in mac terms), Adobe used the term "Heavy"
to classify styles that were bolder than "bold", like Tiffany Heavy & Franklin
Gothic Heavy. But the latest release of Futura goes COMPLETELY against
this…"Heavy" is bolder than "Book", but LIGHTER than "Bold" – and Futura's
Heavy is accessible by choosing "Bold" from the style menu for "Futura",
whereas "Heavy" faces used to be their own separate family (BTW – Futura Book
gets you Futura Bold, and so does Futura LIGHT).
EXAMPLE 2: If your postulate were true (that making a font "bold" gets you
the next weight up), then Univers would be easy…but it's not. Univers 45 +
"bold" = Unvers 65; Univers 55 + "bold" = Univer 75. Here, the bolding skips a
weight in each step. But in the case of Univer Condensed, BOTH 47 and 57 become
67 when made bold. The Futura Families are even worse, and very different from
Univers.
EXAMPLE 3: Never forget what Adobe did with Helvetica Light & Black…
skipping ALL the intermediate levels in both regular and condensed. from the
looks of their newest groupings, I'd say that the "new" Helvetica families are
similarly confusing, since they've paired Helvetica 25 (ultra light) with
Helvetica 95 (extra black) in the same package.
EXAMPLE 4: The "Eras" families are completely UNlinked (except for "Medium",
which gets you "Bold"). These are six individuals, taking a hefty space in any
font menu. (of course, there's no italics either).
And so it goes….
-Scott Leyes
PS: I've got a list of the current irregular references (thru Eras) if you
want me to E-Mail it (I posted it here a while back, but I'm sure it's scrolled
off).