SFO airport font ID

July 22, 2016 5:07 PM

What is the font used on some of the older signage at SFO? Here is a cropped/straightened example, and the sign with a bit more context.

I remember this font being used in signage in many places throughout the domestic terminals 10+ years ago, but it seems like the few surviving examples are in the domestic parking garage, specifically the elevators. I really love the font, and to me it is very evocative of airport design in the 70s, when the parking garages and much of the domestic terminals as we know them today were built.

I've run the linked image through WhatTheFont and the Matcherator, and have gotten some close hits but nothing exact. None of the suggestions have the distinctive lowercase "r" and the somewhat squared-off shape on the round elements.

posted by zsazsa to Media & Arts (3 answers total)

Best answer: I know the look, which was fashionable in the 1970s but may never have existed in digital form. The closest I can get is Fiedler Gothic, which you can't even buy any more but is available from that free font site. The particular cut in your photo may have been proprietary to some kind of sign-cutting machine widely used by airports.
posted by zadcat at 5:54 PM on July 22, 2016

It looks like some sort of distorted/overexposed/otherwise customized version of Eurostyle. Weird. I've been in SFO and never noticed this.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:57 PM on July 22, 2016

Response by poster: Thanks for the info; I had a hunch it was a long shot. A friend says it reminds him of Univers, and I do see the resemblance. There's a lot of Univers at SFO and I really like it there too.
posted by zsazsa at 12:28 AM on July 23, 2016