Fun, detailed essay on old machine-routing font

Joshua Langman
Joshua Langman Posts: 86
in History of Typography
This should be of interest to the denizens of TypeDrawers:

https://aresluna.org/the-hardest-working-font-in-manhattan/

Comments

  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,247
    Very thorough.
    But “essay”? There’s enough here for a book!
    (However, the interactive feature would be impossible to duplicate.)
  • John Savard
    John Savard Posts: 1,139
    Well, Marcin Wichary did write a book.
    But, sadly, in my opinion, this essay is marred by a serious error. Yes, the Gorton Machine company made one typeface of this form for its line of metal engraving equipment.
    But Keufel and Esser designed a slightly different typeface of this form for their Leroy lettering guides.
    And a third typeface of this form was used in-house by IBM for making their keyboards!
    To lump all of these together under the name "Gorton", as this essay appears to do, is a mistake.
  • Thomas Phinney
    Thomas Phinney Posts: 2,945
    edited February 20
    @John Savard We must have read different versions of the essay, because it talks about Leroy at massive length. (Search shows 19 mentions of Leroy!). There is also substantial discussion about the alternative version that ended up on computer keyboards and how it was modified (in fact, actually called “Gorton Modified”).

    Edit: even animated graphics showing the differences between Gorton and the keyboard version....

Categories