I am quite appreciative of Porchez's talent as a type designer, and even more appreciative of him taking the time to provide the PDF comparison. However, I did write that Mencken Text looked too much, not exactly like, Nimrod. I fail to see where the provided comparison negates what I wrote. Perhaps that was not the intention of the comparison? Even by conservative standards of similarity, the letters of both faces, in both roman and italic, do look too similar. Does changing the way a typeface is tracked or leaded constitute a redesign these days? If so, please accept my sincerest apologies. I must be far behind the times.

No Paul, I think you're right on. A friend of mine who is known for being able to pick out fonts wherever he goes (billboards, moving trucks, movie credits, etc.) immediately thought that the Mencken was Nimrod, and made some of the same comments you did regarding both typefaces.

To me, even though they are extremely similar, Nimrod looks fractionally rounder. Mencken is slightly harder to read with its thin arcs. But that could just be the image file (the PDF supplied was blank).

Just to weigh in, at first glance there may seem to be some similarities between Mencken and Nimrod. But if you look at Nimrod, it is rounder and the x-height is very inconsistent, particularly with individual letters like "t", "g", etc. Mencken is a more consistently elegant text, in my opinion, because of its consistent hallmarks and signposts in the individual letters.

To answer Paul Sullivan and Adam Shiver:

I don't think it does any good to compare Text faces on screen at less than 100 dpi. So, before making comments, compare real printed samples, or ever better, comparisons between the past version of the newspaper and new one. I just want to note that 75 % of focus groups preferred the new fonts over the previous ones.

I provided a pdf with Nimrod for comparison because it was a good idea to give you a sample after your comment. But the main point of the brief was to improve legibility over the past text face, not to take after Nimrod.

Lastly, if you are not able to discern the differences between two text faces, I wonder about your skills as designers? (from the same vein as Paul comments) :)

I just wanted to tell you that your web site is very informative for me. I'm currently working as a Production Editor at my college newspaper and it's fun to look at the different newspaper designs from around the world.

Monsieur Porchez, I surely hope you do not really believe pointing to a similarity between two newspaper faces can be basis for calling someone's design skills into question. I have been a senior creative director at Ogilvy for over 8 years now, and have put in more than my fair share of design years at JWT prior to that. The design being commented upon is yours, not mine. I don't recall anyone questioning its authenticity or calling your skills into question. I think it is sad and unprofessional of you to find the need to resort to such unnecessary demeaning.

Again, I agree with Paul. No need casting aspersions here. We're simply comparing two typefaces. I can only speak for myself, but I don't think either myself or Paul were putting down the font, simply pointing out that they both share a great deal of similarity. In the long run it doesn't matter if we like it or not anyway, it only matters that it is legible for the reader of the paper, right?

I think he was joking.
French, you know?

let me live in a world where so much energy is put into arguments such as these....
can you read the words?...

Mencken doesn't look anything like Nimrod.

Robin: Right on.

Designers are the real nimrods here for having lengthy debates about these things. It's a big reason why they should be fired and replaced with real journalists.