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RETAIL FONTS
Commercial Type:
Austin Duplicate Sans (NEW) Duplicate Slab (NEW) Giorgio Giorgio Sans Graphik Guardian Local Gothic Publico Stag Stag Sans Stag Sans Round Stag Stencil
Emigre:
Los Feliz
Font Bureau:
Amplitude Farnham Fritz Pennsylvania
FontFont:
FF Bau FF Meta Headline FF Meta Serif FF Oxide FF Unit FF Unit Slab
House Industries:
Casa Latino! Luxury Luxury Text Neutraface Neutraface Condensed Neutraface No. 2 Neutraface Slab Simian
Linotype:
Neue Haas Grotesk
CUSTOM FONTS UNFINISHED WORK EARLY WORK
ABOUT

   
2005. OpenType programming by Tal Leming. Released by Schwartzco through Village.



I took several classes at Pittsburgh Filmmakers while I was in school, and I had to walk by a Rally's Hamburger place to get there. Their sign was amazing - it looked like they had bought their movable letters on three or four separate occasions and didn't care that they didn't match. It gave me an idea for a very distressed typeface that was made up of completely undistressed characters - the uneven texture was only apparent if you looked at multiple characters at a time. I loosely based the individual characters on the four most popular sans serifs in American vernacular design: Helvetica Bold, Futura Extra Bold, Franklin Gothic Condensed and Alternate Gothic No. 2. Ultimately it's more a special effect than a typeface, but I think it's a pretty cool special effect.

I had abandoned Local Gothic as a relic of the 90s - an interesting idea that didn't really need to be finished - until 2005, when I was convinced me it might deserve to be released after all. First, it ended up a central part of the graphic identity for TypeCon New York, lending it a certain haphazard charm. While all of the TypeCon stuff was in the works, Tal Leming at Type Supply contacted me because he had been playing around with a simple OpenType randomizer, and the font he had built as proof of concept reminded him of Local Gothic.



We applied Tal's code to Local Gothic, and the change was subtle, but reinforced the illusion that the pattern of styles was accidental. Sometimes matching characters appear next to each other. Some alternates end up being used more often than others. The texture is willfully uneven.

Regular