It's a long time since I thought about doing Leroy lettering, so I was delighted to see the tiny clip of someone doing that. My thoughts on Leroy were a bit divided, I have to say.
When I was young we were first taught how to letter by hand, so when we were allowed to use Leroy, it felt a lot like cheating. I suppose it was great that perfect results were easy to achieve, but replacing skill with pattern-following was not necessarily an improvement.
To this day, I linger over old research articles that have maps and graphs that had been lettered by hand. Many papers written in the 1800s have beautifully clear line drawings of apparatus that can be much more useful than the photos included in newer papers.
I've seen this font everywhere for my whole life and never looked into it's history. It's a fascinating account and I'm glad Marcin wrote it down.
Emotionally, what I feel when I see text using it is: "This information is serious and if you don't pay attention to what this says someone could get hurt"
There's nothing playful about it at all, which makes sense in how it was used for industrial controls, military signage, elevators, and the like.
For a time I wrote code for BMS/BAS systems for many prominent commercial buildings in the NYC area, control rooms in basements and on rooftops and all the secret in-between rooms, in-between. (A fascinating job not without its exposure to asbestos, among other hazards.)
And, as someone born and raised in the south, I was thoroughly enamored with this ubiquitous font that implied the seriousness and purpose of each control implement, to include the priority of the functionality said implement represented, on countless panels I engaged with.
This deep dive was pleasing to my soul and I'm immensely thankful to the author for taking the time (and the photos) to indulge in traversing this wormhole for us.
Thank you so much for writing this. I am a solo game developer working on a vintage-styled spacecraft simulator, tearing his hair out over the cockpit typeface problem. I recognized the classic Apollo spacecraft from the sign engraving tools I'd seen in use on the job about 40 years ago, but I couldn't figure out the name for it or identify a font that recreated it properly.
Add this to the list of wonderful things I never expected to wake up to on HN!
I'm afraid the author has it backwards. This style of writing didn't start as a font from some company.
This is just how you used to be taught to do lettering in a drafting class. The straight lines and simple shapes make it easy to do lettering with pencil or a pen, which is also why all the lines are the same width and all the line caps are rounded.
Later on these turned into stencils, which let users do lettering quickly by tracing the pen inside the stencil - and then turned into fonts for use in print. But all that came later. What we have here is just lettering people learned in drafting classes, and which was later used to make stencils and templates.
Came for the typography geek-out, stayed for the machine tools and ANSI Y14 refs.
Had no idea the rabbit hole went this deep. Work with CAD standards and on my to-do list is adding rendering for IFC text notes to a GL application and was wondering what default font to use. Haven't checked STEP yet, but IGES defined a special font code (FC2) for "LeRoy", so these things percolate through technology like the apocryphal Roman Cart/Railroad Gauge story!
I don’t mean this as a slight, but this has to be written by a post-millennial. As a late gen-Xer, nothing about these letterforms were unusual or “ugly” to me as they were practically ubiquitous. They were just as common and valid as standard printed forms.
I suppose it’s something like how a modern reader might react to seeing a “long s” — ſ — for the first time.
Again, this isn’t meant to insult anyone, just that it’s really fascinating to see a different generational perspective here.
The author keeps referring to the font as ugly, but I really enjoy it. The variety of signage I've seen it on (national parks, placards, industrial applications and schematics) evoke a sense of awe in me.
What timing! I'd just worked out* the "stickfont" or "open-path font" or "stroke font" that one of my favorite defunct games rendered with GL_LINE_STRIP, and it seems to be from the Hershey glyph set. If you haven't heard of it, it's a remarkable achievement of one individual contributor, essentially a career engineer applying vector graphic rendering to technical lettering.
"In older [keyboards] – those from the early 1960s laboratory computers, or the 1980s microcomputers – the way every key was constructed was by first molding the letter from plastic of one color, and then grabbing a different plastic and molding the key around the letter."
This makes me want an old keyboard. Amazing how hardy keyboards were back then.
Great essay, really enjoyed it! In particular all the beautiful photos!
Typography is a bit of mystery to me. I can somehow recognize "bad" or "strange" fonts, but often I can't put my finger on it. I was immediately put off by the font of the essay, but I kept reading, and right in the middle came the big reveal (spoiler alert):
> (This essay is typeset in a strangely-spaced version of Century put together for Selectric Composer typewriters and recreated for on-screen use. If that didn’t bother you before, it will bother you through the rest of this article.)
A bit of a meta-comment. Something about this piece hits exactly the sweet spot of length and complexity for engaging but still accessible prose, which I feel like has become rarer over time, replaced by the modern writing of instant gratification. (Whether less is being produced, or it's less prominent, or whether the other kinds have become more prominent, I can't say for sure.) I really appreciated it, independent of the subject matter.
It's funny seeing Letraset described as popular through the 1960's. They were still available in most stationery stores well into the 1980's at least, and commonly used because they provided better headlines etc. for small newspapers and the like than dot matrix printers for anything you wanted to photocopy rather than sending to have typeset by a professional printer.
It’s so great to read something interesting, well written, well supported and researched, and totally engrossing. This could have been a paid piece in a magazine, but was given to us all for free. Thanks for that!
"Gorton is a decidedly toy-like, amateurish font deployed to for some of the most challenging type jobs: nuclear reactors, power plants, spacecraft. More than most other fonts, Gorton feels it’s been made by machines for machines – but in its use, it’s also the font that allows you to see so many human mistakes and imperfections.
"...Gorton also feels mistake-friendly. The strange limitations of Gorton mean that some of the transgressions of other fonts don’t apply here... Sure, there are really bad renditions that are inexcusable. But most of the time, the imperfections and bad decisions are what makes Gorton come alive. They don’t feel like a profound misunderstandings of typography, typesetting, or Gorton itself. They don’t feel like abuses or aberrations. No, they feel exactly how Gorton was supposed to be used – haphazardly, without much care, to solve a problem and walk away...
"The transgressions are not really transgressions. They all feel honest. The font and its siblings just show up to work without pretense, without ego, without even sporting a nametag. Gorton isn’t meant to be admired, celebrated, treasured. It’s meant to do some hard work and never take credit for it."
Plenty of parallels here to software work and the seasoned advice you hear about our craft. "Worse is better". "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good". It's about loving your trusty tools, imperfect as they may be.
The hardest working font in Manhattan
(aresluna.org)849 points by robinhouston 14 February 2025 | 118 comments
Comments
When I was young we were first taught how to letter by hand, so when we were allowed to use Leroy, it felt a lot like cheating. I suppose it was great that perfect results were easy to achieve, but replacing skill with pattern-following was not necessarily an improvement.
To this day, I linger over old research articles that have maps and graphs that had been lettered by hand. Many papers written in the 1800s have beautifully clear line drawings of apparatus that can be much more useful than the photos included in newer papers.
Emotionally, what I feel when I see text using it is: "This information is serious and if you don't pay attention to what this says someone could get hurt"
There's nothing playful about it at all, which makes sense in how it was used for industrial controls, military signage, elevators, and the like.
And, as someone born and raised in the south, I was thoroughly enamored with this ubiquitous font that implied the seriousness and purpose of each control implement, to include the priority of the functionality said implement represented, on countless panels I engaged with.
This deep dive was pleasing to my soul and I'm immensely thankful to the author for taking the time (and the photos) to indulge in traversing this wormhole for us.
Add this to the list of wonderful things I never expected to wake up to on HN!
This is just how you used to be taught to do lettering in a drafting class. The straight lines and simple shapes make it easy to do lettering with pencil or a pen, which is also why all the lines are the same width and all the line caps are rounded.
Later on these turned into stencils, which let users do lettering quickly by tracing the pen inside the stencil - and then turned into fonts for use in print. But all that came later. What we have here is just lettering people learned in drafting classes, and which was later used to make stencils and templates.
Had no idea the rabbit hole went this deep. Work with CAD standards and on my to-do list is adding rendering for IFC text notes to a GL application and was wondering what default font to use. Haven't checked STEP yet, but IGES defined a special font code (FC2) for "LeRoy", so these things percolate through technology like the apocryphal Roman Cart/Railroad Gauge story!
I suppose it’s something like how a modern reader might react to seeing a “long s” — ſ — for the first time.
Again, this isn’t meant to insult anyone, just that it’s really fascinating to see a different generational perspective here.
https://mastodon.online/@mwichary/111700218511462472
https://shifthappens.site/
http://www.whence.com/hershey-fonts
* with the help of others ^_^
https://www.londonmuseum.org.uk/blog/doves-type-thames-myste...
Does anyone else have cool font/typeface stories?
This makes me want an old keyboard. Amazing how hardy keyboards were back then.
[0]: https://github.com/fonsecapeter/brass_mono
I'm relieved to find I'm not the only person who wanders around photographing the typography.
Typography is a bit of mystery to me. I can somehow recognize "bad" or "strange" fonts, but often I can't put my finger on it. I was immediately put off by the font of the essay, but I kept reading, and right in the middle came the big reveal (spoiler alert):
> (This essay is typeset in a strangely-spaced version of Century put together for Selectric Composer typewriters and recreated for on-screen use. If that didn’t bother you before, it will bother you through the rest of this article.)
Well played!
https://i.imgur.com/SsH1DHt.png
Excellent article though.
…i.e. British! :P
(Sorry couldn’t resist)
I think I have this font indelibly burned into my brain from a childhood of using 8-bit computers.
Honestly it feels like it ought to be a coffee-table book. I'd buy it.
Gorton sold machines that solved problems.
Typography today is a celebration of self.
Nice article though, an interesting anthropological dive and perhaps the starting point for some research.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixie_tube
"Gorton is a decidedly toy-like, amateurish font deployed to for some of the most challenging type jobs: nuclear reactors, power plants, spacecraft. More than most other fonts, Gorton feels it’s been made by machines for machines – but in its use, it’s also the font that allows you to see so many human mistakes and imperfections.
"...Gorton also feels mistake-friendly. The strange limitations of Gorton mean that some of the transgressions of other fonts don’t apply here... Sure, there are really bad renditions that are inexcusable. But most of the time, the imperfections and bad decisions are what makes Gorton come alive. They don’t feel like a profound misunderstandings of typography, typesetting, or Gorton itself. They don’t feel like abuses or aberrations. No, they feel exactly how Gorton was supposed to be used – haphazardly, without much care, to solve a problem and walk away...
"The transgressions are not really transgressions. They all feel honest. The font and its siblings just show up to work without pretense, without ego, without even sporting a nametag. Gorton isn’t meant to be admired, celebrated, treasured. It’s meant to do some hard work and never take credit for it."
Plenty of parallels here to software work and the seasoned advice you hear about our craft. "Worse is better". "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good". It's about loving your trusty tools, imperfect as they may be.