Typographers of the World, Unite!

January 11, 2014 2:34 PM

I'm vector-izing this header plate from an old edition of my labor union's newspaper for use in future editions. Obviously I'll be tracing the hand-lettering of "Industrial Worker", but I'd like to find a font that matches as closely as possible the sans serif lettering used for "Labor Produces all Wealth..." and the slogans on the banners.
posted by wobdev to Media & Arts (8 answers total)

I think the first question is whether or not you want to preserve the print bleed of those letters. I think your choices are either to modernize those fonts a little bit with a standard sans serif font, or go ahead and vectorize them as well.
posted by phaedon at 3:11 PM on January 11, 2014

Response by poster: Hm, tough call. Let's say I want to modernize a bit, but preserve the feel somewhat.
posted by wobdev at 3:15 PM on January 11, 2014

Best answer: Well, my eyeball says you might have some luck with soft/rounded sans fonts.
posted by phaedon at 3:20 PM on January 11, 2014

While it's fairly new (1997), Blair has the same general shape. Here's the text in Blair. Perhaps a period typeface would be closer.
posted by zsazsa at 3:30 PM on January 11, 2014

Best answer: Most of the things on this this list of wide Grotesque fonts look pretty similar.
posted by mekily at 4:30 PM on January 11, 2014

Gotham (or a nearest equivalent) is perhaps a font you want to look into. Widen it out a bit in Illustrator and you'll be very close.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 6:49 PM on January 11, 2014

Best answer: The entire header looks hand-lettered, so you may not be able to perfectly replicate the feel. But Montag seems pretty close to me.

If you want to keep the font consistent in the "Labor Produces All Wealth" text and the banners, look into a font family that has both extended and condensed widths. Something like Akzidenz-Grotesk would work nicely.
posted by Metroid Baby at 7:00 PM on January 11, 2014

You might also try whatfontis.com.
posted by nosila at 8:04 AM on January 12, 2014