A sign of the Times: Confusion over newspapers’ font online

The Irish Times and The Times are two completely different newspapers and no-one’s going to confuse them - or, at least, a court ruled this week that the Dublin newspaper was not entitled to an injunction against the new entrant.

Yes, the London Times coming here might be a little similar to the Dublin newspaper, but it's hardly like you'd confuse the two side-by-side, right?

Well ...

Here are the Twitter logos for the Irish edition of the Times and the Irish Times. *rubs eyes* pic.twitter.com/67qXaFLOQO

— Christine Bohan (@ChristineBohan) July 28, 2015

Yes, just a day after The Irish Times lost its high court action to prevent its competitor using the name The Times Irish Edition or any similar name, the fact that their logos are practically identical caused a bit of confusion on Twitter.

Of course, there's a perfectly sensible reason for this: a typeface.

Times New Roman is a computer font that anyone with a copy of Microsoft Word will recognise - but it's called that for a reason.

Times New Roman was commissioned by the London Times in the 1930s, and designed by designers Victor Lardent and Stanley Morison to be legible at small sizes on newspaper - and it was widely adapted.

Both newspapers have changed their typefaces several times since, but the shared typographical heritage is there.

So we've launched our Twitter account for The Times (Irish edition). It's @thetimesIE - tweets to come soon

— Richie Oakley #andacyclist (@roakleyIRL) July 28, 2015

After the confusion this morning, the Times (Irish Edition) - er, that's the one from London - changed their branding from the white-on-black they use in the UK to black-on-white.

So now there's definitely no similarity at all. No siree.