It’s called Gotham.

Gotham’s designer, Tobias Frere-Jones, has long collected typography specimens from around New York City. The bold, majestic faces leftover from over half a century of announcing places and things have a nostalgic charm that hadn’t been dusted off until Gotham made its debut in 2000.

Back when graphic designers were less common (the whole profession probably sounded pretty wishy-washy in the ’40s), the architects and engineers who constructed a building often ended up designing its signage.

As a result Gotham is a geometric font, but Frere-Jones allowed it to “escape the grid wherever necessary, giving the design an affability usually missing from ‘geometric’ faces,” according to the H&FJ website. Frere-Jones often cites the lettering above the Port Authority Bus Terminal as inspiration.

Gotham is wider than average text, lending it gravity and solidity. It says, “What I’m saying is special enough to warrant the extra room I require.” Increased legibility comes from this and the large x-height (the height of the lower part of the letter, usually compared to the ascender).

You might be surprised to hear it arose from a commission for GQ Magazine. It’s been used by pretty much everyone before the Obama campaign got their hands on it.

A few days ago I saw a foreign model surprised that Barack Obama uses the same font that advertises an underwear brand back home. I even used the ultra caps for the logo of my file-delivery service, Sendshack.

You can also see it on the cornerstone of the Freedom Tower being built where the World Trade Center once stood. Quite the honor for a typeface designed to reflect the spirit of New York City.

H&FJ also point out that McCain’s using a font most would recognize from the supermarket cosmetic aisle.

Where have you noticed Gotham?

Tartine Script is an understated script with personality, like a more-connected, heavier Cutiful. I’ve got the normal and heavy weights… went with normal for the logo.

Quite elegant… not something I’d want to use for body text, but as a display font it works great. Very legible, a little embellishment on the capitals lends it some flair, and great for offsetting the small contemporary fonts in the WordPress theme I selected.

FF Tartine Script

But think of the fonts we see today in the logos of the largest companies in the US: Wal-Mart, Exxon Mobil, General Motors, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips. They’re all the same style — clean, professional, and, well… cold.

I never expected a typographic time machine when we hopped on a Diablo Rojo to check out the main bus terminal here in Panama City, but that’s exactly what we got.

Cruising through Calidonia, we couldn’t help but marvel at the hand-painted scripts and western-style faces that decorated shop after shop. Brightly-colored kiosks lined the streets advertising phone and shoe repair in fonts you might expect from a House/Poppl (type designers) lovechild.

So today I wandered down Via Central and up Avenida Peru to capture some of the things we saw.

One quick mention before the photos… yet another example of how awesome the people of Panama are. North of Via Central isn’t a great neighborhood, and when something caught my eye and I ventured that way, I had six people warn me to turn around before I’d gone one block.

Not just bystanders, but people who lived there! I’ve never had so many strangers concerned for my well-being before.

Anyway, hope there are others out there who appreciate typography porn. Let’s start with our favorite…

Click to see the larger size.

Have you found some interesting type or design away from home? I’d love to hear about it.

Stay tuned for the typography of Japan in March!