I came across an amazing article by Marcin Wichary at the weekend, about a font you’ve probably never heard of: Gorton. And that’s despite the fact that you probably encounter it very regularly.
The Hardest Working Font in Manhattan is a long web page, but even if you don’t read the whole thing, there’ll be plenty to catch your interest if you skip bits from time to time. There are even some interactive demos. But do read most of it, too.
It’s always good to be reminded, amidst so much of the online rubbish we see today, just how much brilliant work is also out there.
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Great article. I still have my Gorton P1-2 pantograph engraving milling machine. They are really nice machines, capable of very precise work, not just engraving signs. My friend, who had perhaps four or more engraving machines, made me a set of letters in acrylic (just as in the article). As I recall, my friend modified his Gorton to do even higher reductions–maybe 100:1?
A close cousin to the Gorton font would be the vector fonts in pen plotters (e.g., Hewlett-Packard). Unlike the Gorton font, as I recall HP’s font was clear about potentially ambiguous characters like O/0.
That Max Cadliner is very cool–had never heard about a machine like that. (And available for <$300 on eBay.)
Hi Dale – Aha! I should have known you’d have one! Must try to make it back to your part of the world before too long and you can show me!
All the best,
Q