Gotham: the Obama campaign font, and a free alternative

Wide geometric capitals taken from New York building signs.

In use, with Merriweather

Edit the words to try your own. The pairing tool has more body fonts.

History

• Tobias Frere-Jones designed Gotham with Jesse Ragan at Hoefler & Frere-Jones. It was designed in 2000 and released in 2002.[1]
• GQ magazine commissioned it, asking for a geometric structure.[1]
• It is based on mid-century New York architectural lettering, such as the sign on the Port Authority Bus Terminal's Eighth Avenue front.[1]

Who uses it

• Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign signs and posters[1]
• The One World Trade Center cornerstone (2004)[1]
• The 2010 United States census[1]
• Netflix, until 2018[1]

Sources

1. 1. Wikipedia: Gotham (typeface)

The free alternative

Montserrat has the same wide, round geometric capitals and an even stroke.

Body fonts that go with Montserrat:

• MerriweatherA sturdy serif body balances the heavy, wide capitals.
• Source Serif 4Lighter serif with a modern feel, good for long reads under bold headings.
• Open SansHumanist sans, narrower than the heading, so the two do not blur together.

Other fonts

• TrajanRoman inscription capitals, and the movie poster font.
• HelveticaThe Swiss sans that ended up on subway signs and airline logos.
• ArialDrawn to the same widths as Helvetica, shipped with Windows.
• FuturaThe 1927 geometric sans of circles and straight lines.
• ImpactA 1965 Sheffield display face that became the meme font.
• GaramondSixteenth century Paris type, revived many times since.
• Times New RomanMade for a London newspaper in 1932, then shipped with Windows.
• DidotHigh contrast French type, and the look of fashion magazines.
• BaskervilleA Birmingham printer’s sharper, lighter serif from the 1750s.
• Comic SansDrawn in 1994 for the speech bubbles in Microsoft Bob.
• CourierAn IBM typewriter face that screenplays never gave up.
• RobotoGoogle's Android system font since 2011.