It took the world by storm with a look and feel of something sleek and straightforward, words used by designer Michael Beirut. Since its retail release in 2001, Gotham has become one of the most successful sans serifs in American graphic design. When going back to the beginning of the Gotham typeface existence you will find that it is actually relatively new in the typography world. GQ commissioned Tobias Frere-Jones to design a masculine font. The family includes eight weights in roman and italic, as well as a companion range of designs in a narrower width, Gotham Condensed. gotham rounded font Examples Gotham Rounded on its own In action 7 Gotham Rounded samples. "Tobias Frere-Jones designed Gotham in 2000 for the redesign of GQ magazine. Imagine British typography without Gill Sans, or German typography without DIN. That this lettering hadn't been developed into a typeface really reveals an absence in the American typographic spectrum. Tobias and I had both admired this sign for some time, and thought it a good starting point for a typeface inspired by this style. Inspired by a form of twentieth century architectural signage found in New York City, Gotham was initially created for GQ Magazine back in 2000, after the Conde Nast men's magazine commissioned American type designer Tobias Frere-Jones to design a sans-serif with a 'geometric structure' that would look 'masculine, new and fresh. "A particularly handsome example of this appears on the Eighth Avenue façade of the Port Authority Bus Terminal, in metal channel letters. Gothams letterforms were inspired by examples of architectural signs of the mid-twentieth century. It is simultaneously geometric and 'grotesque,' a happy medium between the ruthless geometry of the Bauhaus and the more practical kinds of vernacular letters that figure prominently in American faces like Franklin Gothic. Gotham is a geometric sans-serif typeface family designed by American type designer Tobias Frere-Jones with Jesse Ragan and released through the Hoefler & Frere-Jones foundry from 2000. Like all sans serifs, it probably has its roots in the nineteenth century, but the most exemplary examples of this particular style probably appeared starting around 1920. It's a distinctly non-typographic style, drawn from the aesthetic of sign painting (and sign making) rather than printing types. "There is a particularly American style of sans serif lettering that is so pervasive as to be almost invisible. First appearing in the pages of GQ magazine in 2001, Gotham gained international attention in 2007 when it was adopted by the presidential campaign of Barack Obama.
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