Fonts & Feelings

In the 1980’s, a friend of mine had a Macintosh. It was the first time I got to play with a list of fonts.

The fonts were named after cities, like Athens, Chicago, and Toronto. As a kid, I knew some of the city names. However, at the time, Toronto was just a word I saw in that font list. I knew “Toronto” was a city name because of context. But I would not have been able to point to the city on a globe.

To this day, I have never visited Toronto. But I feel vaguely happy when I hear the name, because I associate that word with happy memories. It’s amusing that one could have a positive feeling about a city, even though one has never been there, and the positive feeling has nothing to do with the actual city.

There is a story behind how “Toronto” became the name of a font. Folklore.org includes a fine telling of the tale.