Fun, detailed essay on old machine-routing font

Joshua Langman · February 17

This should be of interest to the denizens of TypeDrawers:

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

Nick Shinn · February 17

Very thorough.
But “essay”? There’s enough here for a book!
(However, the interactive feature would be impossible to duplicate.)

John Savard · February 19

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 · 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....

mwichary · February 22

Hi! Hope you don’t mind me jumping here because this is a fascinating subject for me to figure out, and appreciate the discussion.

It is true that there is a lot of monoline fonts and the whole space is kind of a gradient where the boundaries are very fuzzy.

However, there is proof Gorton purchased/licensed TT&H engraving machines, and subsequently decades later that K&E purchased Gorton machines as a starting point for what became known as “Leroy.” On top of that, comparing the letterforms of TT&H, Gorton, Leroy, and Hershey, you can see probably about 75–80% of identical or almost-identical glyphs between the adjacent fonts.[*] To me it justified lumping them under one umbrella of “quasisuperfamily.” In the story I focused more on the differences, but the similarities are vast and undeniable. I know the creative space of simplistic monoline fonts is very limited, and they all start from already somewhat established practice of technical writing, so you could imagine independent parallel design of *some* of the letterforms, but the licensing and the similarity of so many glyphs tell a tighter story to me.

In comparison, the IBM keyboard font (BTW just for clarity – I believe John is not referring to Gorton Modified, but something earlier that I am not sure IBM ever named?) started from Gorton machines, but was changed so thoroughly that it feels like its own distinct typeface/font. The “identical glyph ratio” is a lot smaller there, and no one would mistake it for Gorton even if comparing one simple word typeset in both.

Ironically, Gorton Modified is the furthest away member of the family with the most modifications compared to the original(s), but it itself identifies as Gorton, so that was an easier call.

I hope this rationale makes sense! But curious how other people feel about it – I’m definitely not an expert in font grouping/classification/categorization.

[*] Which you can see in the interactive feature toward the aend if you open the page on a desktop machine. Please note those were all recreated by me from various apples-and-oranges sources (for example, I didn’t have access to TT&H master copies), and my hunch is that they would be even more similar if I went directly to the source on all of them.

John Savard · February 22

I suppose I should clarify my remarks.

I found your book excellent and fascinating.

The reason that I found the online essay to be in error is, simply, that the convention in typography is to use a name, like "Times Roman" or "Baskerville", for a typeface to apply to exactly one specific typeface, and not to anything else that resembles it. No matter how close the resemblance, if there is even one tiny difference, it's a different typeface with a name of its own.

So I wasn't claiming that you were unaware of the existence of Leroy lettering guides. And, indeed, you weren't unaware that the letters they made had slight differences in some cases from those of Gorton, as your reply shows.

It's fascinating to learn that Leroy was derived from Gorton, as you note. But in the world of typography, "derived from" isn't "is".

John Hudson · February 22

Fry’s Baskerville.

Leroy’s Gorton.

mwichary · February 22

Thanks for the explanation! I see your point, but after all in the essay I am giving all these fonts their individual names as appropriate, including on a clear derivation chart.

Whether the “meta quasi super family” of these connected fonts deserved a different name than its most important constituent and where does the line stop is an interesting topic for debate, but given half of these fonts don’t have “official” names to begin with… it didn’t feel right to me to complicate it even further, especially in a casual setting like this.

(Lastly, I am not sure we are in a position to say Leroy was “derived” from Gorton the same way, say, Arial was derived from Helvetica. To me it seems closer to how Inter 4.0 was “derived” from Inter 3.0.)

All in all, I do believe/hope a careful or caring reader will understand the relation between George Gorton’s Gorton and “Gorton” as a conceptual umbrella above it all in those few moments I might be conflating the two, aided by charts, terms like “proto-Gorton,” and the interactive features.

mwichary · February 22

PS I think a bigger weakness of my essay is in clarifying the relationship between Gorton, Leroy, and technical drawing conventions that predate both. I developed a sense, but cannot fully confirm that Leroy through its popularity in various tools, dialed in some of the technical drawing conventions that led to Gorton to begin with, and established more of a “de facto standard.” But I didn’t research this to the extent it perhaps deserved since it felt more tangential to me. I am very curious if anyone has more insight/expertise here.

Thomas Phinney · February 22

John Savard said:

The reason that I found the online essay to be in error is, simply, that the convention in typography is to use a name, like "Times Roman" or "Baskerville", for a typeface to apply to exactly one specific typeface, and not to anything else that resembles it. No matter how close the resemblance, if there is even one tiny difference, it's a different typeface with a name of its own.

It’s good to be clear, but the essay achieves this.

And it is also a standard convention in typography to use a name like Baskerville or Garamond broadly to refer to all the derivative works. I can make a reference to “many Garamonds” and a reader who is versed in typography should and likely will infer that I am referring to the full panoply of inspired and derived works by later designers, and not only all the typefaces cut by Claude Garamond himself.

Or, if somebody says a modern book is set in “Baskerville,” they are not wrong because they didn’t specify which version. They are just being less specific.

Nick Shinn · February 24

A good point Thomas, but some distance in time is required for a typeface name to become generic.
For instance, Myriad is not referred to as a Frutiger, nor Montserrat a Gotham. For that matter, it’s not clear whether such a genre might be named Gotham or Proxima Nova. “Garalde” was a clever idea, combining Garamond and Aldus; similarly, “Didone” mashed up Didot and Bodoni. “Gothima” anyone?

John Hudson · February 24

Myriad is not referred to as a Frutiger

I think Adrian referred to it as a Frutiger.

Fun, detailed essay on old machine-routing font

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