Karen
Marcin WicharyI think every designer should write a love letter to a font at least once in their lifetime.
This is mine: A 150-year-old font you have likely never heard of, and one you probably saw earlier today.
Jessamyn
GSV Megastructure Enthusiast@mwichary it has a name! I have loved these engraved signs for decades and it never occurred to me to even describe it as a font.
Theo Honohan
Ed G.@mwichary What a fantastic article!
europlus 
iideacocarl@mwichary Thanks for this delightful retrospective. In an earlier life I built control panels, and used several versions of engraved letters, Letraset, and eventually silk screening, so many of the things you touch on were familiar, and not a little nostalgic. (I even tried hand lettering some conference nameplates once, with mixed results at best; my intentions were good.) A well-written, and enjoyable post.
SamuelJohnson@mwichary I know it's got to be Gorton and I want to read it but nothing is loading. π
@samueljohnson Yeah, I see that too.
LexGear 
@samueljohnson @mwichary oh good. It isn't just me.
@LexGear @samueljohnson Works for me now!
s0 Is Not A Sysadmin@mwichary think we might have knocked out your site!
Dan Sandler@mwichary Oh no, you've been Slashdotted
@mwichary in this case it's the Verge: https://www.theverge.com/typography/613618/go-read-marcin-wichary-gorton
(Vergedotted? Decoded? Dieter Bohned?)
@dsandler Yeah, very annoyed by this. Didnβt know this was still even a thing. Not much I can do about it, except find a better host that DreamHost later this month!
@mwichary this page won't load for me. βΉοΈ
ink and yarn@mwichary Oh wow, this was a fascinating read! I acquired a Leroy lettering set from my neighbour last year and while I'm not sure what condition it's in or what I'm going to do with it if it's usable, I recognized some of those letter shapes *instantly*. How cool!
Brennan Goewert@mwichary I guess this is getting a lot of attention because the page isn't loading for me either.
@bgoewert Yeah, it went to Hacker News and The Verge. Please keep trying!
@mwichary Absolutely fantastic. π
Jeff@mwichary @deviantollam Dev, I think you will like this article. It's about the engraved fonts you see in elevators and access control panels.
Deviant Ollam@overeducatedredneck @mwichary I adore this!
And, in fact, in our elevator talks Howard Payne and I specifically mentioned Gorton font! How cool!
Simon Cox 
@mwichary
That is an absolutely cracking article! Fascinating!
That is an absolutely cracking article! Fascinating!
ChancerubbageWhen did routing into plaques become common?
Gravestones were absolutely ruined when DTP came along, and they gave up pantographs and templates.
Ollie Boermans@mwichary @kayserifserif this article fills a gap in typographic education (mine at least).
We learnt a lot about the history and evolution of serifs, and not nearly enough about the practicality of their absence.
π
Daniel Reeders@mwichary This is so lovely, thank you for sharing it.
conor: conor edition@mwichary just finished the essay. oh my god it was brilliant - the photos are amazing and I can feel the care put into this. can't wait to see what's next :)
Jason Santa Maria@mwichary This is such a great dense design dive, I love it! The numbers have so much wonky personality. Thanks for putting this together!
(Also, please publish an RSS feed π)
Luke Dorny 
Colin Devroe
Dec [{(
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"Gorton was older than Gill Sans, Futura, or Johnstonβs London Underground font." Respect!
"Gorton was older than Gill Sans, Futura, or Johnstonβs London Underground font." Respect!
tuban_muzuru
D2@tuban_muzuru @mwichary yes. Yes you should.
Joshua Iz@mwichary What a fantastic post. Learned so much about a typeface that even as I designer I never really thought about. Bravo.
Mike Lynch@mwichary This is lovely and also gave me a long-forgotten muscle memory because my parents ran a sports trophy business in the 80s, and I got pretty good at engraving people's and pets' names on trophies with a hand pantograph which used a Gorton-family typeface
@fsvo Thatβs cool! I have never actually gotten to use a pantograph and now I really want to.
Third spruce tree on the left@mwichary I would never have expected to be so enthralled by an article about a font.
Kevin Russell
systemd-jaded.timer@mwichary *wow*. awesome article and beautiful photos that make me reconsider which objects i see in a city.
Simon Cozens@mwichary That's how you tell a story.
King Naga Calyo Lucere-Delphi@mwichary I don't have time to read this whole blog entry tonight, but I am ENRAPTURED by the bit I've read so far. π€©
I'll need to finish reading this if my ADHD doesn't make me forget by the time I get home from work tomorrow.
James CrowleyThis is wonderful and useful. As a native New Yorker with an casual/intermittent interest in typography, I always thought it was weird that I know what typefaces are on the London Underground or German highways but not the one I see every single day of my life. Now I know both what it is and why the answer wasn't a simple search engine query away.
Keith J Grant@mwichary this is absolutely fascinating. Thank you for all the research this must have taken. I see that font everywhere but have never thought about it and now I want to use it
feliz@mwichary
What a great article about the history of a #typeface. So interesting to read about the technical and mechanical background of #typography β thanks!
I know someone in Germany who collects old signs, many of them are engraved. Next time I visit, I will take some photos of them. I'm sure there will be examples of Gorton variants in Europe.
Bob Jonkman> 14 February 2025 / 6,100 words / 600 photos
Worth reading every word, and examining every photo.
Airplanista πΊπ¦@mwichary Interesting topic, fonts. When I was a working graphic designer (about 30 yrs), my Mac's Fontbook had 1,000+ fonts, and in production I rarely ventured outside about a 30 font comfort zone. I used to covet my fonts, studied them, altered them in Adobe Illustrator (like when designing logos), but over the years, most of my collection only collected digital dust.
I go back to when people bought fonts. Yeah, I know, a dinosaur, but one that is retired after a pretty satisfying career.
@Av8rdan @mwichary
I remember the early days of DTP. A local business would get a laser printer (and a small computer with the right software and plenty of fonts) and soon they were publishing promotional NEWSLETTERS with each KEYWORD on the page in a DIFFERENT FONT, like what I'm doing HERE with my cAPS lOCK.
Actual designers would have advised them to not use so many typefaces.
I remember the early days of DTP. A local business would get a laser printer (and a small computer with the right software and plenty of fonts) and soon they were publishing promotional NEWSLETTERS with each KEYWORD on the page in a DIFFERENT FONT, like what I'm doing HERE with my cAPS lOCK.
Actual designers would have advised them to not use so many typefaces.
kcΗ
Henk LangeveldWonderful story! Enjoying this
Benjamin Dumke-von der Ehe@mwichary This was an amazing read! And yes, those shapes have a strong familiarity even to this German who grew up in the 80s and 90s.
Thank you for this trip!
Thomas Bosboom β
@mwichary Engraved fonts do stand up to time and get patina; telling a story of decades of intense use.
martin_fff@mwichary wow, o m g
jarkman@mwichary Delightful, thanks.
zl2tod
Jack Yan (ηη΅ζ©)