Gotham: The Font of the 20th Century

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The Font of the 20th Century

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Gotham The Font of the 20th Century

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reated initially for GQ who

Showing inspiration for Gotham was the

commissioned the font designer

all-time iconic geometric Futura: a font that

in 2000, type designer, Tobias

eliminated any decorative elements and

Frere-Jones was tasked to

left its characters with the bare minimum.

create a font that was masculine, fresh, and

Engineered with basic shapes, it was a

absolutely straight forward. Frere-Jones

typeface that followed the Bauhaus ideology

wanted to preserve the New York charm

of function over form. While the font was

and designed a modern typeface that would

mainly designed with mathematical logic,

meet the needs of designers for years to

the Gotham font designer allowed some

come. With that he based the font from

characters to break the rule whenever

the Port Authority Bus Terminal signage,

necessary. While there have been other fonts

as he describes it as a found a geometric

that mix humanist and geometric styles,

character—not made by a designer, rather by

Frere-Jones came up with a new solution.

an engineer. Created with the basic idea of lettering Gotham was formed.

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Who Made Gotham?

“(Gotham) is not the type of letter that a type designer would make. It’s the kind of letter an engineer would make. It was born outside of type design, in some other world and has a very distinct flavor from that.”

(Tobias Frere-Jones, from Helvetica)

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PORT Gotham’s City Roots

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AUTHORIT

Gotham finds its typographic

“The goal was to find a straight-

There’s also the more nebulous

roots in much of the 20th-century

forward voice — even stark,”

and encompassing question of

architectural signage commonly

says Frere-Jones, “and the Port

style. Gotham has been described

found in New York City. Oddly

Authority Bus Terminal lettering

by Frere-Jones as “fresh” and

enough, the geometric signage on

was a promising example of that

“masculine” (it was, after all, initially

the front door of the Port Authority

voice. I was also concerned about

intended for GQ); Michael Beirut,

— not a place many people

making a new geometric sans when

who designed Hillary Clinton’s

associate with hipness — served as

there already so many I hoped that

2016 logo, once described it to

an inspiration for Gotham’s creator,

this non-typographic source could

Newsweek as a “sleek, purposefully

type-industry titan Tobias

yield something memorable in such

not fancy, very straightforward,

Frere-Jones.

a crowded field.”

plainspoken font.”

TY BUS TERMINAL It’s difficult to untangle what goes

with the right color palette, it could

into the distinction of a typeface

easily read as an elegant, feminine

as “masculine” – is it the blockiness

typface. It’s a font that swings

or the letters, for instance, or the

both ways!

straight and authoritative lines that prompt the association? In the context of GQ, Gotham’s unfussy directness and authority could certainly be read as masculine, especially in its heavier weights – but in the lighter weights, paired

Gotham Gotham 7

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Different Weights of

Gotham

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Ultra Black Bold Medium Book Light Extra Light Thin 9

Anatomy of Gotham

One can’t really describe this

York City, Gotham celebrates the

like Avenir, it feels more natural than

Hoefler and Frere-Jones creation

alphabet’s most basic form. These

mechanical. In fact, its lowercase

better than H&FJ themselves:

qualities made Gotham the most

shares a lot with Avenir’s, despite

“Gotham. What letters look like.”

popular release of recent years.

being much larger. But Gotham’s

The typeface is simply self-evident.

It’s used everywhere, in logos,

essence is in the caps: broad,

Each character just feels “normal”

in magazines, in the very things

sturdy “block” letters of very

and “right”. Inspired by mid-century

that inspired it: signs. Gotham’s

consistent width.

architectural lettering of New

simplicity is not mearly geometric

Wide Body

Flat Terminals and Flat Apertures

Cap Line

Meanline (x-height)

Large X-Height

Baseline

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Descender

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Little Contrast between Thicks and Thins

Sans-serif

Offset Counters

Contains Wide Apertures

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Done for a school project.

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