Over the last week we have been working diligently on a project that will hopefully get published soon. One of the main themes of this project is a travel map-meets-subway-map sort of feel. Immediately I went to the Futura font to get some nice informative uppercase love, but then was told that this is currently being overused to death. My boss then suggested Trade Gothic.
$480 dollars later we had ourselves some slick Trade Gothic. Now don’t get me wrong, I love me some Futura. But alas this is all news to me, and type wasn’t exactly what I specialized back in school. I’m a fan of Franklin Gothic, Helvetica and other related san-serif’s, so this one was worth a try. What I found best about this font, is that while I is very much similar to Franklin Gothic, the differences come in the widths of the curves. Whenever I would design an article for a magazine, I would always use Franklin gothic Book because A. it wasn’t Helvetica B. it was nice and compact for small places.
Trade Gothic however, works better as a title because of the extra air it can breath when it is typed out, but at the same time it doesn’t screen “This is a title… I’m so official,” as Century Gothic. It’s a wonder why I don’t see this more on subway signs and road maps. The only thing that really bothered me about this font, was the price. For such a slight difference in comparison to Franklin Gothic, it makes me wonder if it is even worth it for the amature designer or one man shop. But then again I didn’t have to pay it. For you designers starting out, I would suggest getting your hands on this font just to try it out and jack with the kerning a bit. How you get your hands on it is entirely up to you…. but it is definitely worth the practice when your agency starts sinking it’s money into exclusive fonts.
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