![]() ![]() Gotham look-alikes including Raleway, Montserrat, and Gibson have taken up the mantle of clean, straightforward sans serifs, alongside Gotham progenitors like Avenir and Proxima Nova.īut it’s not just a matter of typefaces the popularity of sans serif is part of a constellation of trends within a major shift toward minimalist design. ![]() In the nearly two decades since Gotham’s arrival, the already well-populated field of pared-down sans serifs has seen an explosion in the world of advertising. (Incidentally, licensing a font like Gotham isn’t cheap – a basic package of Gotham in four weights with and without italics runs for $199 on .)īut you likely wouldn’t immediately peg Gotham as “the Obama font,” or “the Saturday Night Live font,” or “The Spotify font,” would you? In its universality, Gotham resists being pigeon-holed, allowing it to be used by major brand after major brand without becoming stale. In 2004, a 20-ton cornerstone was laid at the site of the restored Freedom Tower, bearing the inscription “To honor and remember those who lost their lives on Septemand as a tribute to the enduring spirit of freedom.” The inscription was chiseled in Gotham, which had only been recently released by Hoefler & Co. This includes even the most somber contexts. Gotham is, in many ways, a blank slate, able to be used stylishly in a wide variety of contexts while imbuing its surroundings with a bit of down-to-earth, “plainspoken” elegance. Perhaps that combination of sleekness and plain-spokenness is the most crucial factor in its rise to prominence. It’s difficult to untangle what goes into the distinction of a typeface as “masculine” – is it the blockiness or the letters, for instance, or the 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 with the right color palette, it could easily read as an elegant, feminine typface. Gotham has been described by Frere-Jones as “fresh” and “masculine” (it was, after all, initially intended for GQ) Michael Beirut, who designed Hillary Clinton’s 2016 logo, once described it to Newsweek as a “sleek, purposefully not fancy, very straightforward, plainspoken font.” There’s also the more nebulous and encompassing question of style. I was also concerned about making a new geometric sans when there already so many…I hoped that this non-typographic source could yield something memorable in such a crowded field.” “The goal was to find a straightforward voice - even stark,” Frere-Jones told me over email, “and the Port Authority Bus Terminal lettering was a promising example of that voice. Oddly enough, the geometric signage on the front door of the Port Authority - not a place many people associate with hipness - served as an inspiration for Gotham’s creator, type-industry titan Tobias Frere-Jones. In fact, Gotham finds its typographic roots in much of the 20th-century architectural signage commonly found in New York City. If the advertisements in the train stations and bus stops in your city don’t use Gotham, they probably use a Gotham look-alike. An abbreviated list of where it has appeared includes: Coke bottles Twitter Spotify Netflix Saks New York University The Tribeca Film Festival TV shows including CONAN and Saturday Night Live movies including Inception, Moneyball, The Lovely Bones, and Moonlight. Gotham is a typeface first designed in 2000 for GQ and released for public use in 2002. If you’ve been online, seen a billboard, gone to a movie theater, or walked down the street with your eyes open, you’ve seen Gotham. ![]() I am cursed with the compulsive need to identify every typeface I come across, but even if you do not suffer this particular affliction - if your relationship to typography resembles your relationship to air, a constant interaction so seamless you hardly think about it unless something goes seriously awry - you know this font. When I close my eyes and think of a word, I picture that word in Gotham.
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