My boyfriend is a graphic designer. He is also a raging type nerd. It’s impossible for us to walk down the street without stopping to dissect the kerning of a laundromat sign or marvel at some insane hand-painted lettering in a deli window. “Look at those serifs!” “Jesus, that is the craziest ƒ I have ever seen.” “Ugh, why did they choose Comic Sans? They’re basically asking us not to eat here.”

Now he pop quizzes me on fonts. We’ll be walking to dinner and, even if I’m in the middle of a sentence, he’ll point and say, “Name that typeface!” Now I do know a few fonts – as a writer and editor I am intimate with Times New Roman, which I know makes him cringe – but I can’t readily recognize them, especially not under the gun like that. Over time I picked up some names that I would just throw out, hoping one would stick. My first choice is usually Hobo because I like to say “hobo.” I also like to say Bodoni (a.k.a. the Vogue typeface) because it sounds like what a surfer would call a donut or a hot girl. Recently, though, I’ve become a little more savvy thanks to the sometimes illustrious, sometimes weird, always memorable origins of the fonts’ names.

So, like a weakling who’s been bullied and takes it out on his little sister, I’ve constructed my own brief pop quiz for you readers, culled from the copious signage of Brooklyn.

Answers at the end of the post.

Here we go:

1. First, I’ve learned that this is like the cardinal sin of type treatment: vertical type. As my boyfriend would say, “Barf!” But looking beyond that, this type shares its name with a very generous New York neck-beard enthusiast whose wife invented jell-o.

2. Let’s focus on “beacon’s” (unless you want to show off and name the second one, too). If asked, this typeface would probably choose to sit in a Wassily chair and rationalize this very rational choice in crisp, steely Deutsche.

3. Duh, easy. This one’s a movie star.

4. This font probably hasn’t shaved in a long time. By the way, it’s inexplicably popular in my neighborhood. I chose this business because I like the alliteration.

5. Bonus round. Can you name ALL THREE fonts on this awning? I sure as hell can’t.

So how did you do?

1. Cooper Black
2. Bauhaus
3. Helvetica
4. Hobo
5. Anybody’s guess.