Fun, detailed essay on old machine-routing font

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: 2,253
    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: 1,149
    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: 2,955
    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....

  • John Savard
    John Savard Posts: 1,149
    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".
  • mwichary
    mwichary Posts: 3
    edited 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
    mwichary Posts: 3
    edited 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.
  • Nick Shinn
    Nick Shinn Posts: 2,253
    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
    John Hudson Posts: 3,350
    Myriad is not referred to as a Frutiger
    I think Adrian referred to it as a Frutiger. :p