San Francisco Has a Font (and I Don't Care)

Added to the list of things that I never knew were needed: San Francisco finally has its own font.

The old embossed typeface

The font is inspired by San Francisco’s old embossed street signs, distinctive black-on-white steel markers that began appearing in 1946 and were prevalent in the city in the 1960s and 1970s.

The bubbled-out letters can be seen in archive photos, movies such as “Bullitt” and “Vertigo,” and almost every episode of “The Streets of San Francisco.”

According to designer Ben Zotto

Fog City Gothic (photoshop)

The [old] typeface was embossed in metal, and what happens is the edges get softened, and they paint the sign on top so it looks different from different angles.

That’s what I wanted to capture. Bold and blockish, but soft around the edges. I called it Fog City Gothic hoping to evoke that feeling.

Eh, the San Francisco font is fine.

Your humble blogger knows what he doesn't like: at one extreme he shuns letters that are too squarish and on the other he always switches from fonts that have a lot of curly cues. Fog City Gothic falls within the vast middle that is acceptable, and some people like the designer obviously care, but I just don't.