🏙️ The hardest working font in Manhattan
Marcin Wichary:
It’s hard to believe today that there was a time before I knew of Gorton and all its quirks and mysteries.
This is exactly how I feel now that I've read—no, devoured—this post.
The more I looked at it, the more I realized how bizarre and amateurish it was. The G always felt like it was about to roll away on its side. There was a goofy wavy hook sticking out of Q. P and R were often too wide. & and @ symbols would be laughed away in a type crit, and the endings of C felt like grabbing something next to it – a beginning of a ligature that never came.
[...]
My first thought was: What a mess. Is this how “grotesque” fonts got their name?
Then, the second thought: I kind of like it.
Same.
But what font was it? What The Font website posited TT Rounds, Identifont suggested it could be Divulge, my early guess was DIN Rounded or something related to road signage. Whatever it was, a flat R clearly separated it from Helvetica, and the shapes were not as round as even the un-rounded Gotham’s.
A few places for keyboard nerds referred to the font as “Gorton,” but that phrase yielded zero results anywhere I typically looked for fonts I could download and install.
This is just the beginning of an incredible typographic journey. Set aside some time to sit down in front of a large display, open The hardest working font in Manhattan, and have an absolute blast.