New Look Launched At Historic Woburn Type-Setting Business

WOBURN, MA — It’s not just fine print: A Woburn company created one of the most popular, instantly recognizable typefaces in the world 25 years ago, and now the font is making headlines, literally.

You’ve probably seen the signs.

The “Gotham” template premiered in 2001 on the cover of GQ magazine and was later used on the cornerstone of One World Trade Center in New York City. President Barack Obama’s election campaign chose the typeface for 2008 promos.

Monotype Imaging, headquartered at 600 Unicorn Drive, said it’s added options that now allow graphic designers to expand how they use Gotham.

That might be a help for the designers, who sometimes need to adapt the font’s visual standards to a particular ad, web page or marketing material.

The typeface was commissioned by GQ in 2001, after asking Monotype to create a sans-serif font – no appendages hanging off the letters – with a “geometric structure” that would look “masculine, new and fresh” for the magazine.

“Gotham has spent 25 years earning an extraordinary kind of trust, from political campaigns to billboards, and across some of the world's most iconic brand identities,” said Sara Soskolne, executive creative director at Monotype, in a statement.

With the new online rollout, dubbed “Gotham Variable,” the company is trying to “imagine what this typeface could become without losing sight of its powerful legacy.”

Monotype dates to an 1887 business founded in Philadelphia, and since then has created many of the world’s most popular typefaces, including Times New Roman, Gill Sans and Arial. The company moved its headquarters to Woburn in 2015.

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