The Legend of Prince’s Special Custom-Font Symbol Floppy Disks

http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/04/princes-legendary-floppy-disk-symbol-font.html

by tintinnabula • 10 years ago

91 18 10 years ago

cs7022• 10 years ago

For those who don't know, Prince legally changed his name to a made-up unpronounceable symbol in the early 90's to sidestep restrictions in the contract he had signed with his record company, Warner, which at the time had the rights to use the name "Prince" for music and merchandise.

After the legal name change, news outlets started calling him "the artist formerly known as Prince." Meanwhile, Warner had no rights to the new, unpronounceable name. Warner executives likely were not too happy about that, but couldn't do anything about it.

In 2000, after the contract with Warner expired, Prince went back to using his old name.

Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36107590

yxlx• 10 years ago

I knew about the name change but not the reason. I had always chalked it up to hubris on his part. Thanks :)

svantana• 10 years ago

Is the part about him legally changing his name really true? All the sources say so, but surely there are laws and regulations around name changes in the US. I have a hard time imagining the IRS having him down as the symbol.

Also, changing your name can't be a legal way of getting out of contracts, can it? If it is, then someone should let Ke$ha know...

k-mcgrady• 10 years ago

I've heard several different reasonings over the years. I don't think it actual got him out of a contract but it allowed him to screw the record company. His new 'name' was difficult to market and they had the rights to the 'Prince' name, not his new one, so any new merchandise they created would not be matching the name he was now marketing himself under. Fans are going to listen to him and not the record company. So all in all he was just screwing them out of money and making their job difficult but it didn't actually end any contract.

toast0• 10 years ago

Looking at the discography and discussion on the Wikipedia artivle, I don't think the name change got him out of his contract. It seems that he had to release a certain number of albums to finish his contract. I think by using the symbol on those albums, he prevented Warner brothers from having rights to use his name in connection with it. He probably negotiated his next contract a bit differently.

cs7022• 10 years ago

svantana: for the purpose of Warner enforcing its contract with Prince, he legally changed his stage name, i.e., the name of his act.

dghughes• 10 years ago

I remember when Prince did that soon after Weird Al Yankovic said he was going to legally change his name to Prince but Prince said no.

galago• 10 years ago

Ha! You type "P" for the symbol-- so he doesn't have his own Unicode codepoint?

The font may have an ambiguous license, but it appears that it was meant to be widely distributed to promote Prince. Is it available anywhere? I could make my own, but that wouldn't be the same.

llamataboot• 10 years ago

Here you go - converted to TTF and downloadable: http://www.dailydot.com/technology/prince-font-install-love-...

(straight to dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jvj2ss4jfymvir1/AAD_x2sTAfJM8xsgF...)

seanwoo• 10 years ago

Yea I found a article about the font and how they recovered the original. http://www.dailydot.com/technology/prince-font-install-love-...

GauntletWizard• 10 years ago

No, he doesn't, and it's a crying shame. Contact your local Unicode consortium representative - If and 𒀽 deserve Unicode codepoints, the artist formerly known as Prince surely does too.

jloughry2• 10 years ago

To propose this character to the UTC (Unicode Technical Committee) you'll need to include as many examples as possible showing the symbol used in running text. Physical objects and logos won't do; you need to show historical use of the symbol in running text (newspaper or magazine articles, books, liner notes, et cetera). Find examples, and we could make the proposal.

We've done it before on HN:

https://github.com/jloughry/Unicode/#readme

CapitalistCartr• 10 years ago

He also performed with "Slave" painted across his face/chest. He REALLY didn't like his treatment by the studio.

sampo• 10 years ago

After all, could any other artist convince a major music publication to integrate a custom font?

“How many people can just say ‘Hey, I’m changing my name to this symbol so can you use it from now on?’ and everyone’s like ‘Alright. Okay. No questions asked. You’re Prince! We’ll do it!’ It was kind of funny to me.”

Then again, music journalism is probably a business where they are accustomed to seeing all kinds of diva behavior.

The Legend of Prince’s Special Custom-Font Symbol Floppy Disks

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