Routed Gothic Font (opens in new tab)

(webonastick.com)

346 pointsdector6y ago57 comments

57 comments

For a newer font in this vein, I'd look at B612, a font designed in cooperation with Airbus specifically for visibility inside cockpits: https://github.com/polarsys/b612/blob/master/docs/B612-Leafl...

cyphar6y ago

I'm also quite surprised that the symbols for "O" (capital O) and "0" (zero) are very similar, even in the monospace version of B612.

randomcarbloke6y ago

Cyphar, two years ago you posted:

"Well, there is a port of glibc to UEFI, so one could very easily "boot into Emacs". Strangely I've not seen anyone do this."

Can you hook me up with that link :) Cheers.

1 more reply

userbinator6y ago

...and for an older font, look at Futura and its variants --- whose users in aerospace included Boeing and NASA.

mhd6y ago

And which might be known for a few as the main body font of the AD&D first edition books -- not the best use case for it.

Igelau6y ago

Too bad the () and the [] look so much alike in the monospaced version.

ginko6y ago

Sort of related, there's DIN 6776, a German standardized font used for technical drawings:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normschrift

https://www.typografie.info/3/uploads/99b804cee64ef8c64ad900...

I had to learn that one in drafting class in middle school.

app4soft6y ago

DIN standards are local derivatives of ISO standards.

There are few widely used "Technical lettering"[0] standards: «ISO 3098»(EU/International), «ASME Y14.5»(US) and «GOST 2.304»(ex-USSR).

There are few FLOSS fonts which cover «ISO 3098»[1,2,3], «ASME Y14.5»[3,4,5] and «GOST 2.304»[6,7,8] technical lettering standards.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_lettering

[1] https://github.com/hikikomori82/osifont

[2] http://peter-wiegel.de/TGL.html

[3] http://peter-wiegel.de/TGL_0-16.html

[4] https://www.fontspace.com/micronus

[5] https://cstools.asme.org/csconnect/CommitteePages.cfm?Commit...

[6] https://bitbucket.org/fat_angel/opengostfont/

[7] https://github.com/Metrolog/Font.GOST2.304-81

[8] https://github.com/MishkinIN/Font_GOST_2.304

ginko6y ago

Seems like ISO 3098 is significantly newer than DIN 6776, so it's the ISO standard that's derivative of the DIN one.

1 more reply

exmadscientist6y ago

Thank you for posting this! I've been looking off and on for this for ages and ages.

Trivial factoid: my understanding is that the Gorton pantograph fonts came first, and that the Leroy lettering sets were manufactured using the Gorton fonts. But I don't have a good source for that, so I could be completely wrong.

rjsw6y ago

I had not heard of those brands, I had Rotring [1] lettering stencils to match some of their pens.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotring

jccalhoun6y ago

If people aren’t familiar with the Leroy Lettering system here is a video of it: https://youtu.be/GZRvQDMBEOE

This font was also used by EC Comics (their comics included Tales From the Crypt). Here is another font based on that which is more fuzzy: https://caseyburns.com/artwork/font-design/

_jal6y ago

I'm pleased to see he implemented the vital U+1F4A9 code point.

dickeytk6y ago

[bottom of https://webonastick.com/fonts/routed-gothic/unicode-coverage...]

shmageggy6y ago

Ah, a mainstay of technical drawings and engraved office signs.

1 more reply

cogburnd026y ago

Now it needs U+0CA0....

https://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/0ca0/index.htm

etaioinshrdlu6y ago

I learned to write in this style by hand in an engineering graphics / drafting class in college.

I too find the high concentration of upper case fonts, especially Courier New, in engineering and especially EE, to be kind of relaxing and pretty.

1 more reply

qwerty4561276y ago

It's not ugly, it's beautiful.

spectramax6y ago

At the risk of sounding "out of touch with reality" and "retro nostalgic", I strongly believe that a lot of clean, sterile work took place in the 1965-1985 era. From UNIX to SR-71, everything mankind did in the technical space was minimal, purposeful, clean, legible, durable, maintainable, modular and many other adjectives that would compound on the idea of creating a truly better product or service. Marketing took a backseat, science and data mattered and advertisement was truthful.

Today's world seems broken, fragile, noisy and unmaintained. May be that humanity needs to unwind, rewind back a couple of decades and try again. If you play the scenario of human evolution multiple times, I am sure a large scale system such as global society would end up in a different state... every time.

Reminds me of the story that Kyoto, Japan didn't get ruined because one of the military commanders in charge of the nuclear bomb drop locations, had a soft spot for Kyoto... and instead chose Nagasaki and Hiroshima. [1]

If we were to replay human progress, I want us to go back to that era and relive the engineering life. Must have been amazing to work in a technical field in the 70's and 80's. Now we have AI and Quantum and all these fucking buzzwords, largely perpetuated by people who have no clue - marketing and PR folks.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/08/hi...

inferiorhuman6y ago

I keep going back to the old AT&T phone book fonts like Bell Gothic[0] and Bell Centennial[1] largely because it was designed to be legible at small sizes when using rather primitive printing methods. In a more modern context I find it works really well on charts and whatnot, even scaled down and compressed a bit more[2].

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Gothic

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Centennial

2: https://i.imgur.com/9xNgHX9.png

chapium6y ago

Perhaps what has survived into the 21st century are simple designs and less so complex ones.

2 more replies

frutiger6y ago

> Now we have AI and Quantum and all these fucking buzzwords

“Quantum” is from the 1920s. It’s not really a buzzword but more an adjective describing our most accurate model of reality yet that physics can provide.

1 more reply

marcosdumay6y ago

> minimal, purposeful, clean, legible, durable, maintainable, modular

Yeah, the modernist ethos. Today those would sound featureless, single-minded, featureless (yea, again), oversimplified, lasting beyond its usefulness, unoptimised, repetitive.

As any engineer, I also like the modernist thinking better, but it's not realistic, life is messy and complicated.

gelo6y ago

It may be the size on the page, or glyph rendering artefact but this font doesnt look... consistent. Dont get me wrong the font is brilliant, however atleast for me there are some points at which the rendered glyphs are over cut. Another way id describe this is the antialiasing is not consistent. Its like layering the same text on top of the other multiple times.

Sharlin6y ago

The author mentions that there’s no hinting, which may explain what you’re seeing.

reaperducer6y ago

Wow, this is triggering some kind of memory cascade in the back of my brain that I simply cannot place. I know this font, but I really can't say from where.

The closest guesses I can come up with is the Commodore 64 Programmers Reference Guide, or maybe an old terminal or computer magazine. But I could easily be wrong.

Either way, I love it.

aaronharder6y ago

Perhaps Forrest Mims of Radio Shack Engineer's Notebook fame?

https://hackaday.com/2017/01/18/forrest-mims-radio-shack-and...

reaperducer6y ago

Wow. I think that might be it!

blattimwind6y ago

This kind of writing seems to be the equivalent of Normschrift in the US; it's all over schematics from the 60s and 70s (sometimes even the 80s). Just like Normschrift written by craftsmen it looks super-regular, almost like computer set type, except it has tiny variations between draftsmen, making it clear it is actually written by hand. (Some people use templates to write Normschrift; a looked down upon practice, generally not permissible in exams).

bitwize6y ago

To me it looks like the Simplex font from AutoCAD (which I believe was based on a selection of characters from Hershey).

chewxy6y ago

I like how under unicode coverage, the one emoji that is covered is the poop emoji. Human universals I guess.

Dramatize6y ago

I love the feel of this font.

uasm6y ago

> "I created this font by purchasing a Leroy Lettering set, using Inkscape to trace the scanned letterforms of one of its templates, and some FontForge Python scripting."

How does this work from a copyright/legal perspective?

bruckie6y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protecti...: "Typefaces cannot be protected by copyright in the United States". (Note that fonts--e.g. a .ttf or .otf file--can, though.)

Other jurisdictions do provide protection for the abstract shapes represented by typefaces.

runxel6y ago

Guess why so many Helvetica impersonations/clones exist:

The thing is called "tracing" and quite common.

The actual code (which means the ttf/otf) is protected under copyright. The shape of a letter isn't and can't be by any form of IP.

So: You're not allowed to redistribute the font file but creating your own font which just happens to look alike is perfectly fine.

md5person6y ago

Thanks.

So, a given "specification" (how a font looks to the human eye) can have many different "implementations" (ie. TTF files). The specific "implementations" themselves can be copyrighted, but somehow not the "specifications"?

If so... assume one TTF file which is copyrighted, pay-per-use license. Assume another TTF file, which is open-source, free to use and redistribute. The files both implement the "Helvetica" specification, rendering the same letters to the human eye. How "different" must the free implementation be from the paid one, for it to not be considered an infringement?

1 more reply

sgt6y ago

This is pretty much the same as Comic Sans, except Comic Sans is a bit more curvy and fun. Routed Gothic is what Comic Sans should have been.

Pinus6y ago

You should check out Comic Neue. http://comicneue.com/

Waterluvian6y ago

Related to this one, has anyone identified an equivalent font for what was used in the Apollo CSM and LM cockpits?

urxvtcd6y ago

Wasn't this just Futura?

Waterluvian6y ago

Oh hey it might have been. I dunno how I missed that. Thanks!

kccqzy6y ago

Why does it implement just a few of the superscripts, but not all?

maxerickson6y ago

1, 2 and 3 are in the Latin 1 block, 0,4-9 are at U+2070-U+2079.

masswerk6y ago

I've been on the look for this for a long time. Thanks!

Gracana6y ago

KiCAD 6's font support can't come soon enough!

dim136y ago

Would love it in monospace variant.

cellular6y ago

Brick Hect would be proud.

microcolonel6y ago

An OpenType tabular numbers feature would be a nice addition, for numbers in tables. I think it would mostly be a matter of adding a hook to the 1 like other similarly-proportioned industrial fonts.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

57 comments

hlieberman6y ago

cyphar6y ago

I'm also quite surprised that the symbols for "O" (capital O) and "0" (zero) are very similar, even in the monospace version of B612.

randomcarbloke6y ago

Cyphar, two years ago you posted:

"Well, there is a port of glibc to UEFI, so one could very easily "boot into Emacs". Strangely I've not seen anyone do this."

Can you hook me up with that link :) Cheers.

1 more reply

userbinator6y ago

...and for an older font, look at Futura and its variants --- whose users in aerospace included Boeing and NASA.

mhd6y ago

And which might be known for a few as the main body font of the AD&D first edition books -- not the best use case for it.

Igelau6y ago

Too bad the () and the [] look so much alike in the monospaced version.

ginko6y ago

Sort of related, there's DIN 6776, a German standardized font used for technical drawings:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normschrift

https://www.typografie.info/3/uploads/99b804cee64ef8c64ad900...

I had to learn that one in drafting class in middle school.

app4soft6y ago

DIN standards are local derivatives of ISO standards.

There are few widely used "Technical lettering"[0] standards: «ISO 3098»(EU/International), «ASME Y14.5»(US) and «GOST 2.304»(ex-USSR).

There are few FLOSS fonts which cover «ISO 3098»[1,2,3], «ASME Y14.5»[3,4,5] and «GOST 2.304»[6,7,8] technical lettering standards.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_lettering

[1] https://github.com/hikikomori82/osifont

[2] http://peter-wiegel.de/TGL.html

[3] http://peter-wiegel.de/TGL_0-16.html

[4] https://www.fontspace.com/micronus

[5] https://cstools.asme.org/csconnect/CommitteePages.cfm?Commit...

[6] https://bitbucket.org/fat_angel/opengostfont/

[7] https://github.com/Metrolog/Font.GOST2.304-81

[8] https://github.com/MishkinIN/Font_GOST_2.304

ginko6y ago

Seems like ISO 3098 is significantly newer than DIN 6776, so it's the ISO standard that's derivative of the DIN one.

1 more reply

exmadscientist6y ago

Thank you for posting this! I've been looking off and on for this for ages and ages.

rjsw6y ago

I had not heard of those brands, I had Rotring [1] lettering stencils to match some of their pens.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotring

jccalhoun6y ago

If people aren’t familiar with the Leroy Lettering system here is a video of it: https://youtu.be/GZRvQDMBEOE

This font was also used by EC Comics (their comics included Tales From the Crypt). Here is another font based on that which is more fuzzy: https://caseyburns.com/artwork/font-design/

_jal6y ago

I'm pleased to see he implemented the vital U+1F4A9 code point.

dickeytk6y ago

[bottom of https://webonastick.com/fonts/routed-gothic/unicode-coverage...]

shmageggy6y ago

Ah, a mainstay of technical drawings and engraved office signs.

1 more reply

cogburnd026y ago

Now it needs U+0CA0....

https://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/0ca0/index.htm

etaioinshrdlu6y ago

I learned to write in this style by hand in an engineering graphics / drafting class in college.

I too find the high concentration of upper case fonts, especially Courier New, in engineering and especially EE, to be kind of relaxing and pretty.

1 more reply

qwerty4561276y ago

It's not ugly, it's beautiful.

spectramax6y ago

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/08/hi...

inferiorhuman6y ago

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Gothic

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Centennial

2: https://i.imgur.com/9xNgHX9.png

chapium6y ago

Perhaps what has survived into the 21st century are simple designs and less so complex ones.

2 more replies

frutiger6y ago

> Now we have AI and Quantum and all these fucking buzzwords

“Quantum” is from the 1920s. It’s not really a buzzword but more an adjective describing our most accurate model of reality yet that physics can provide.

1 more reply

marcosdumay6y ago

> minimal, purposeful, clean, legible, durable, maintainable, modular

Yeah, the modernist ethos. Today those would sound featureless, single-minded, featureless (yea, again), oversimplified, lasting beyond its usefulness, unoptimised, repetitive.

As any engineer, I also like the modernist thinking better, but it's not realistic, life is messy and complicated.

gelo6y ago

Sharlin6y ago

The author mentions that there’s no hinting, which may explain what you’re seeing.

reaperducer6y ago

Wow, this is triggering some kind of memory cascade in the back of my brain that I simply cannot place. I know this font, but I really can't say from where.

The closest guesses I can come up with is the Commodore 64 Programmers Reference Guide, or maybe an old terminal or computer magazine. But I could easily be wrong.

Either way, I love it.

aaronharder6y ago

Perhaps Forrest Mims of Radio Shack Engineer's Notebook fame?

https://hackaday.com/2017/01/18/forrest-mims-radio-shack-and...

reaperducer6y ago

Wow. I think that might be it!

blattimwind6y ago

bitwize6y ago

To me it looks like the Simplex font from AutoCAD (which I believe was based on a selection of characters from Hershey).

chewxy6y ago

I like how under unicode coverage, the one emoji that is covered is the poop emoji. Human universals I guess.

Dramatize6y ago

I love the feel of this font.

uasm6y ago

> "I created this font by purchasing a Leroy Lettering set, using Inkscape to trace the scanned letterforms of one of its templates, and some FontForge Python scripting."

How does this work from a copyright/legal perspective?

bruckie6y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property_protecti...: "Typefaces cannot be protected by copyright in the United States". (Note that fonts--e.g. a .ttf or .otf file--can, though.)

Other jurisdictions do provide protection for the abstract shapes represented by typefaces.

runxel6y ago

Guess why so many Helvetica impersonations/clones exist:

The thing is called "tracing" and quite common.

The actual code (which means the ttf/otf) is protected under copyright. The shape of a letter isn't and can't be by any form of IP.

So: You're not allowed to redistribute the font file but creating your own font which just happens to look alike is perfectly fine.

md5person6y ago

Thanks.

1 more reply

sgt6y ago

This is pretty much the same as Comic Sans, except Comic Sans is a bit more curvy and fun. Routed Gothic is what Comic Sans should have been.

Pinus6y ago

You should check out Comic Neue. http://comicneue.com/

Waterluvian6y ago

Related to this one, has anyone identified an equivalent font for what was used in the Apollo CSM and LM cockpits?

urxvtcd6y ago

Wasn't this just Futura?

Waterluvian6y ago

Oh hey it might have been. I dunno how I missed that. Thanks!

kccqzy6y ago

Why does it implement just a few of the superscripts, but not all?

maxerickson6y ago

1, 2 and 3 are in the Latin 1 block, 0,4-9 are at U+2070-U+2079.

masswerk6y ago

I've been on the look for this for a long time. Thanks!

Gracana6y ago

KiCAD 6's font support can't come soon enough!

dim136y ago

Would love it in monospace variant.

cellular6y ago

Brick Hect would be proud.

microcolonel6y ago

An OpenType tabular numbers feature would be a nice addition, for numbers in tables. I think it would mostly be a matter of adding a hook to the 1 like other similarly-proportioned industrial fonts.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse