8 ms·
The hardest working font in Manhattan
- randomcatuser 2y agoI love how image-centric the blog layout is...
- kevin_thibedeau 2y agoToo bad it needlessly hijacks the history.
- jen729w 2y agoYou'll enjoy Marcin Wichary's work. He recently travelled Australia and found instances of Gorton everywhere. https://mastodon.online/@mwichary/111700218511462472 https://mastodon.online/@mwichary/111700218511462472 https://shifthappens.site/ https://shifthappens.site/
- somanyphotons 2y agoWhere can we download this font?
- larodi 2y agoi took this https://github.com/dakotafelder/open-gorton https://github.com/dakotafelder/open-gorton
- jwagenet 2y agohttps://webonastick.com/fonts/routed-gothic/ https://webonastick.com/fonts/routed-gothic/ Also links a number of variations. Another font is “Simplex”, which I think is often still found in CAD products.
- fanf2 2y agoYou can get Marcin Wichary’s version from https://shifthappens.site/store/ https://shifthappens.site/store/ Routed Gothic is a fairly good free version https://webonastick.com/fonts/routed-gothic/ https://webonastick.com/fonts/routed-gothic/ The national park typeface is another pantograph router style font https://nationalparktypeface.com/ https://nationalparktypeface.com/
- computerfriend 2y agoGorton Digital (https://github.com/drdnar/GortonDigital https://github.com/drdnar/GortonDigital) seems like a faithful reproduction.
- Jasper_ 2y agoThe ANSI Y14.2 committee has a version of the font available for download here, created by Peter Karnold. https://cstools.asme.org/csconnect/CommitteePages.cfm?Committee=C64040400&Action=40068 https://cstools.asme.org/csconnect/CommitteePages.cfm?Commit...
- kps 2y agoThe article links to an ‘appendix’ of known digital versions, though it's easy to miss: https://aresluna.org/the-hardest-working-font-in-manhattan/recreations/ https://aresluna.org/the-hardest-working-font-in-manhattan/r...
- 60654 2y agoI'm afraid the author has it backwards. This style of writing didn't start as a font from some company. This is just how you used to be taught to do lettering in a drafting class. The straight lines and simple shapes make it easy to do lettering with pencil or a pen, which is also why all the lines are the same width and all the line caps are rounded. Later on these turned into stencils, which let users do lettering quickly by tracing the pen inside the stencil - and then turned into fonts for use in print. But all that came later. What we have here is just lettering people learned in drafting classes, and which was later used to make stencils and templates.
- xnx 2y ago> The straight lines and simple shapes make it easy to do lettering with pencil or a pe I'm guessing these letters are also easy to create with a CNC machine. (Now that the page has loaded I see he identifies engraving machines.)
- cluckindan 2y agoYou need to actually read the article before commenting.
- _air 2y agoGetting hugged: https://web.archive.org/web/20250214221951/https://aresluna.org/the-hardest-working-font-in-manhattan/ https://web.archive.org/web/20250214221951/https://aresluna....
- djsavvy 2y agoThe author keeps referring to the font as ugly, but I really enjoy it. The variety of signage I've seen it on (national parks, placards, industrial applications and schematics) evoke a sense of awe in me.
- roelschroeven 2y agoAgree completely, I quite like the look of the font. I sometimes feel who are deep in a subject sometimes are too entrenched in their world with rules and guidelines, that to me don't seem all that important to judge quality in the real world; or at least how I perceive things. Another example also comes from the world of typography: text figures (non-lining numerals). To me they're ugly and difficult to read. Typographers like them because they fit better into the appearance of text, and that's true, but of low importance to me. Numbers are not words, and I feel they don't have to look the same. I like them to look different. I want them to be easy to read, which text figures aren't. (I actually went to the effort of creating custom CSS using Firefox's Stylus add-on to force lining numerals on all websites I visit.)
- bitwize 2y agoAs a kid (first, maybe second grade) I wrote lining numerals at a time when kids were taught to write numerals all at x-height, for similar reasons.
- Clamchop 2y agoThey did say they like it, despite it breaking so many "rules".
- kccqzy 2y agoI also like it, in the same way I like DIN even though the author considers DIN to be better designed. I have, like the author, often seen this font when it's carved into metal, and I suppose the fact that it's on metal helps evoke that feeling of industry at its best, like a well oiled machine. I also instinctively associate it with the post-WWII period when technology seemed to be progressing faster than today and when technology was unequivocally a good thing.
- anjel 2y agoAs someone who only recently retired my IBM model F, those are some hot and spicy keyboards. I wish I'd learned about his book sooner.
- Zaheer 2y ago"In older [keyboards] – those from the early 1960s laboratory computers, or the 1980s microcomputers – the way every key was constructed was by first molding the letter from plastic of one color, and then grabbing a different plastic and molding the key around the letter." This makes me want an old keyboard. Amazing how hardy keyboards were back then.
- nemomarx 2y agoyou can still get them like that - the search term is "double shot" for using two molds. very popular and durable for custom keycaps.
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- artursapek 2y agoThis is not an ugly font. It’s incredibly legible and IMO the lack of styling is pleasing to the eye.
- technol0gic 2y agoit also facilitates legibility, especially at a slight distance, as well as distortion (squishing, stretching) if necessary. Both of which are objectively desirable qualities of a font with massive control panels as its native habitat.
- rsynnott 2y ago> it also facilitates legibility, especially at a slight distance, as well as distortion (squishing, stretching) if necessary Except for the terrible, terrible ‘0’, which looks more or less identical to the ‘O’. IIRC sometimes similar fonts had a strike-through 0 for legibility; I think the BBC Micro keyboard did, for instance.
- bjclark 2y agoThe BBC Micro keycaps were made by Comptec (mentioned in the article) in Gorton Modified. Source: I work at signature plastics and have seen the original tooling for it.
- crazygringo 2y agoYes it's highly legible at distances, but you'd never want to use it for body text. The letterforms are not well balanced -- e.g. the bowl of the 'R' is uncomfortably high, same with the top half of the 'Y'. It would be tiring to the eye to read long text in. A lack of styling does not mean a good sense of balance. It is ugly but highly legible. Which is just fine for the kinds of functional engraving it's meant for.
- watersb 2y agoThis is a phenomenal, 6100-word love letter to possibly the world's first industrial typeface.
- qingcharles 2y agoIt was a really great article. A lot of work went into writing that and making it look good too. Peak Internet.
- tagami 2y agoThe text is the material. The medium is the message!
- throwaway519 2y agoOn the RTFA theme: Gorton sold machines that solved problems. Typography today is a celebration of self. Nice article though, an interesting anthropological dive and perhaps the starting point for some research.
- gessha 2y agoIf you liked this article, you might also like this one about a typeface which got tossed into the Thames river: https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/blog/doves-type-thames-mystery-mudlarking/ https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/blog/doves-type-thames-myste... Does anyone else have cool font/typeface stories?
- pimlottc 2y agoI don’t mean this as a slight, but this has to be written by a post-millennial. As a late gen-Xer, nothing about these letterforms were unusual or “ugly” to me as they were practically ubiquitous. They were just as common and valid as standard printed forms. I suppose it’s something like how a modern reader might react to seeing a “long s” — ſ — for the first time. Again, this isn’t meant to insult anyone, just that it’s really fascinating to see a different generational perspective here.
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- bowsamic 2y agoIt’s weird to immediately assume it’s a matter of age. Do you have any basis for that?
- zem 2y agoas another gen-xer i was similarly bemused by the repeated references to the font as ugly, so it did kind of make sense to think that the issue was the author not having grown up with it quite as ubiquitous
- latexr 2y agoUbiquity has nothing to do with beauty. It is perfectly possible for an individual with taste to find something they deal with frequently to be ugly. Especially if they find a flaw early on and it never goes away.
- fenomas 2y agoThe author isn't saying he finds the style unfamiliar - the entire article is about how ubiquitous it is. He's a typographer, so I think he means "ugly" in the sense of having features that modern typographers consider to be flaws - e.g. he mentions the off-balance G, being monoline, etc. Also the author's CV lists working at google from 2006, so he's not exactly a youngster.
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- RainyDayTmrw 2y agoA bit of a meta-comment. Something about this piece hits exactly the sweet spot of length and complexity for engaging but still accessible prose, which I feel like has become rarer over time, replaced by the modern writing of instant gratification. (Whether less is being produced, or it's less prominent, or whether the other kinds have become more prominent, I can't say for sure.) I really appreciated it, independent of the subject matter.
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- miohtama 2y agoThis blog post presents the best of Internet
- Lio 2y agoSo the Gorton font is as American as apple pie? …i.e. British! :P (Sorry couldn’t resist) I think I have this font indelibly burned into my brain from a childhood of using 8-bit computers.
- relistan 2y agoIt’s so great to read something interesting, well written, well supported and researched, and totally engrossing. This could have been a paid piece in a magazine, but was given to us all for free. Thanks for that!
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- technol0gic 2y agoFor a time I wrote code for BMS/BAS systems for many prominent commercial buildings in the NYC area, control rooms in basements and on rooftops and all the secret in-between rooms, in-between. (A fascinating job not without its exposure to asbestos, among other hazards.) And, as someone born and raised in the south, I was thoroughly enamored with this ubiquitous font that implied the seriousness and purpose of each control implement, to include the priority of the functionality said implement represented, on countless panels I engaged with. This deep dive was pleasing to my soul and I'm immensely thankful to the author for taking the time (and the photos) to indulge in traversing this wormhole for us.
- bluenose69 2y agoIt's a long time since I thought about doing Leroy lettering, so I was delighted to see the tiny clip of someone doing that. My thoughts on Leroy were a bit divided, I have to say. When I was young we were first taught how to letter by hand, so when we were allowed to use Leroy, it felt a lot like cheating. I suppose it was great that perfect results were easy to achieve, but replacing skill with pattern-following was not necessarily an improvement. To this day, I linger over old research articles that have maps and graphs that had been lettered by hand. Many papers written in the 1800s have beautifully clear line drawings of apparatus that can be much more useful than the photos included in newer papers.
- detourdog 2y agoLeroy sets was something that would set my dad off on a rant of his struggles with a Leroy lettering set. These would come on in quiet moments of contemplation. When I entered design school his first question was regarding Leroy lettering. We were the first class to go through the curriculum with a Macintosh lab and I never used a Leroy set.
- specialist 2y agoYes and: Lettering guides (sort of) allowed multiple people to maintain drawings. Even then, individual skill and technique allowed team mates to recognize each other's work. I knew one person who had perfect hand lettering. And could mimick other people's lettering. Alas, they eschewed forgery, embracing jazz instead. (They hand lettered their own liner notes, natch.) Source: I was a truly terrible draughtsman.
- vinceguidry 2y ago> Alas, they eschewed forgery, embracing jazz instead. Neil Caffrey would be proud!
- imdsm 2y agoSad, images stopped loading, reloaded the article half way through and site is down :(
- vertnerd 2y agoThank you so much for writing this. I am a solo game developer working on a vintage-styled spacecraft simulator, tearing his hair out over the cockpit typeface problem. I recognized the classic Apollo spacecraft from the sign engraving tools I'd seen in use on the job about 40 years ago, but I couldn't figure out the name for it or identify a font that recreated it properly. Add this to the list of wonderful things I never expected to wake up to on HN!
- mjmas 2y agoWho else clicked on 'feel' in the last paragraph?
- andyjohnson0 2y ago> I grabbed a brand-new DSLR camera and photographed all the fonts I was supposed to love. I'm relieved to find I'm not the only person who wanders around photographing the typography.
- __mharrison__ 2y agoI only do it to photograph Comic Sans and Papyrus to send as jokes in a family group chat.
- zimpenfish 2y ago> I'm relieved to find I'm not the only person who wanders around photographing the typography. There are N of us!
- crazygringo 2y agoThis is a beautiful article. Absolutely fascinating. Honestly it feels like it ought to be a coffee-table book. I'd buy it.
- bjclark 2y agoThe author wrote a whole coffee table book called “Shift Happens”. But it was a one and done kickstarter.
- michaelcampbell 2y agoWOW that took a long time to load. https://i.imgur.com/SsH1DHt.png https://i.imgur.com/SsH1DHt.png Excellent article though.
- squeedles 2y agoCame for the typography geek-out, stayed for the machine tools and ANSI Y14 refs. Had no idea the rabbit hole went this deep. Work with CAD standards and on my to-do list is adding rendering for IFC text notes to a GL application and was wondering what default font to use. Haven't checked STEP yet, but IGES defined a special font code (FC2) for "LeRoy", so these things percolate through technology like the apocryphal Roman Cart/Railroad Gauge story!
- chiph 2y agoI've seen this font everywhere for my whole life and never looked into it's history. It's a fascinating account and I'm glad Marcin wrote it down. Emotionally, what I feel when I see text using it is: "This information is serious and if you don't pay attention to what this says someone could get hurt" There's nothing playful about it at all, which makes sense in how it was used for industrial controls, military signage, elevators, and the like.
- GuB-42 2y agoAnd yet, according to the author, it has some quirks. The idea is that the font itself is not particularly serious, but we are used to see it in serious contexts, so we make the association. And there is also the support, when some text is engraved on metal, there is some permanence to it, some commitment. The one who wrote this really means it. It is not like a sheet of paper, or worse, a computer screen where everything can vanish at the push of a button. I think the titles summarizes it perfectly. It means hard work. When we see this, we imagine industrial machinery and professionals, because that's where it is used. In an alternative world where Comic Sans would be used for this purpose, it would be seen as serious.
- rezmason 2y agoWhat timing! I'd just worked out* the "stickfont" or "open-path font" or "stroke font" that one of my favorite defunct games rendered with GL_LINE_STRIP, and it seems to be from the Hershey glyph set. If you haven't heard of it, it's a remarkable achievement of one individual contributor, essentially a career engineer applying vector graphic rendering to technical lettering. http://www.whence.com/hershey-fonts http://www.whence.com/hershey-fonts * with the help of others ^_^
- vidarh 2y agoIt's funny seeing Letraset described as popular through the 1960's. They were still available in most stationery stores well into the 1980's at least, and commonly used because they provided better headlines etc. for small newspapers and the like than dot matrix printers for anything you wanted to photocopy rather than sending to have typeset by a professional printer.
- spacechild1 2y agoGreat essay, really enjoyed it! In particular all the beautiful photos! Typography is a bit of mystery to me. I can somehow recognize "bad" or "strange" fonts, but often I can't put my finger on it. I was immediately put off by the font of the essay, but I kept reading, and right in the middle came the big reveal (spoiler alert): > (This essay is typeset in a strangely-spaced version of Century put together for Selectric Composer typewriters and recreated for on-screen use. If that didn’t bother you before, it will bother you through the rest of this article.) Well played!
- carlos-menezes 2y agoBrass Mono [0] is a digital alternative to "Gorton". [0]: https://github.com/fonsecapeter/brass_mono https://github.com/fonsecapeter/brass_mono
- flappyeagle 2y agoThe author has a brilliant presentation on pixel fonts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDI8ubVZi7w&list=PLXDU_eVOJTx4SMCvTJXIIuXrMEwSJvX1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDI8ubVZi7w&list=PLXDU_eVOJT...
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- jonjacky 2y agoA related font, Routed Gothic, linked and discussed previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30190397 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30190397
- CamperBob2 2y agoDon't miss the interactive demo about 7/8 of the way down the page ("TYPE SOMETHING"). Really clever design.
- mdMasudrana 2y ago[flagged]
- mdMasudrana 2y ago[flagged]
- svilen_dobrev 2y agolooking at those "3"s.. reminded me of these old digit-showing tube lamps.. but their font is slightly different, esp. the 6/9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixie_tube https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixie_tube
- arduanika 2y agoWonderful read. I loved this passage: "Gorton is a decidedly toy-like, amateurish font deployed to for some of the most challenging type jobs: nuclear reactors, power plants, spacecraft. More than most other fonts, Gorton feels it’s been made by machines for machines – but in its use, it’s also the font that allows you to see so many human mistakes and imperfections. "...Gorton also feels mistake-friendly. The strange limitations of Gorton mean that some of the transgressions of other fonts don’t apply here... Sure, there are really bad renditions that are inexcusable. But most of the time, the imperfections and bad decisions are what makes Gorton come alive. They don’t feel like a profound misunderstandings of typography, typesetting, or Gorton itself. They don’t feel like abuses or aberrations. No, they feel exactly how Gorton was supposed to be used – haphazardly, without much care, to solve a problem and walk away... "The transgressions are not really transgressions. They all feel honest. The font and its siblings just show up to work without pretense, without ego, without even sporting a nametag. Gorton isn’t meant to be admired, celebrated, treasured. It’s meant to do some hard work and never take credit for it." Plenty of parallels here to software work and the seasoned advice you hear about our craft. "Worse is better". "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good". It's about loving your trusty tools, imperfect as they may be.
- kittikitti 2y agoThis was a great read and I especially liked the photos and how they were chose and edited so precisely for the content.