I think every designer should write a love letter to a font at least once in their lifetime.
This is mine: A 150-year-old font you have likely never heard of, and one you probably saw earlier today.
https://aresluna.org/the-hardest-working-font-in-manhattan/
This is mine: A 150-year-old font you have likely never heard of, and one you probably saw earlier today.
https://aresluna.org/the-hardest-working-font-in-manhattan/
Comments
as long as they're nicely kerned! 😍
It might be an unsung, workmanlike font, this is somewhere where at least the numerals have absolutely made themselves standard; iconic. Anything else genuinely looks wrong.
One bit had a fun resonance for me - when you mentioned in passing the orignal Leroy lettering.
https://create.hsbc/start.html#:~:text=Univers%20Next%20for%20HSBC%20is,the%20rest%20of%20our%20brand.
I do not think the yellow thing feels Gortony enough, though… it appears monospace?
One thing: I think you have a superfluous "it" in the para "One day, I saw what felt like Gorton it on a ferry traversing the waters Bay Area. " I suspect you changed your mind to specify 'Gorton'.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/grayson-perry-tomb-unknown-craftsman
i started with the assumption that it was an engraving font but never quite found one I could use
i ended up tracing it instead
It might comfort you to know that Gorton engraved plates are still frequently installed in equipment rooms today. Find a maintenance worker with the keys, and there's a whole private Gorton collection in almost every building.
(Anyone else having trouble with the pictures in section 6?)
Seeing this in the wild makes you feel connected to the human who engraved it in a way any other font doesn't. Thank you!
I’d always known it as Uno, from the lettering stencils by A. West & Co. in the UK - but the Uno letterforms are almost certainly of the same origin.
https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=72350260&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch
https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumber=71697627&caseSearchType=US_APPLICATION&caseType=DEFAULT&searchType=statusSearch
This font really is *everywhere*!