FJ: I don’t actually do anything Napsteresque. I tried to keep it brief because I know you are busy (drinking and downloading music). The following interview was conducted via email. Gotham is the first typeface Frere-Jones designed exclusively for the Hoefler Type Foundry and its release marks his return to New York City. But by focusing on the mundane-even decrepit-corners of his environment with Gotham, Frere-Jones has created a typeface that carries with it the disorienting bustle of a walk in the city-the sense of being engulfed by a history that remains just out of reach. It took an intimate knowledge of the city to see the formal and historical connections between these varied letterforms, but also a humble respect for metropolitan history to focus on such an unglamorous aspect of New York.įortunately for New Yorkers, Frere-Jones has had the opportunity to work on projects for some of the city’s more celebrated institutions: he and HTF principal Jonathan Hoefler have designed typefaces for Grand Central Terminal, Lever House, the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum, the Wall Street Journal, and Radio City Music Hall, among others. Gotham was inspired by a variety of unassuming, often derelict signs originally carved, painted, rendered in neon, and cast in steel or bronze on the facades of buildings throughout New York. In fact, he has undertaken the task of ‘documenting anything extant and noteworthy’ in Manhattan. With these typefaces Frere-Jones preserves the humble letters that inspire them and creates type that resonates with life outside of typography and graphic design.Ī native New Yorker, Frere-Jones’s work is as connected to his hometown as the name of his latest design. There he designed typefaces in every style, but continued his exploration of vernacular lettering with Interstate and another typeface, Pilsner, based on a French beer label. After graduating, Frere-Jones joined the digital type-foundry Font Bureau who had already released Garage Gothic. This interest began while he was a student at the Rhode Island School of Design where he designed the typeface Garage Gothic based on the typography of parking garage tickets. It is the most prominent result of the designer’s continuing interest in what he calls working class lettering. Despite the specificity of its origins, Interstate was embraced universally by graphic designers and has been used on most everything, including the 2000 U.S. First released in 1994, Interstate was based loosely on the font family Highway Gothic, used by the United States Federal Highway Administration for road signs. Inspired by post-war building signage in New York City, Gotham brings together two themes in the work of its designer: working class letterforms and the typographic heritage of New York City.įrere-Jones is perhaps best known as the designer of Interstate, another sans serif typeface with industrial roots. His sad story of falling out with his longtime business partner only underscores the contemporary resonance of Gotham: These are grotesque times.Earlier this summer, Hoefler Type Foundry released Gotham, a new typeface designed by Tobias Frere-Jones. Gotham’s creator, Tobias Frere-Jones, is an avatar of the creative type who blindly follows his muse he will forever be tied to this accomplishment. (A typeset sans is not the domain of the calligraphic, for god’s sake.)Ĭertainly Gotham is overused and now inescapable but that only speaks to the rarity and strength of its character. It manages the Futurists’ love of assertiveness and yet, too, the humanity of faces like Gill Sans without the bogus compromise of Humanism. (See Paul Rand’s “dogshit” comment about Helvetica care of Kyle Cooper.) It has a powerful presence yet it is approachable and even friendly, sharing similar roots to Futura. Notably, it has narrower widths that allow for better legibility when set as text, taking it out of the realm of headline-only typefaces. With its variety of weights and families Gotham is practically peerless.
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