Community Gothic
Frere-Jones · Tobias Frere-Jones, Fred Shallcrass, Nina Stössinger
A deliberate revival of nineteenth-century jobbing grotesques by Tobias Frere-Jones, Fred Shallcrass and Nina Stössinger, built from mismatched historical sources to preserve the grit and irregularity of pre-digital type assembly.
About
Each of the ten styles was conceived and drawn independently, referencing American and European foundry sources, then integrated into a conventional weight-and-width progression for practical use. The designers built custom tools to pursue asymmetric curves and buckled lines, consciously resisting the uniformity typical of digitally drawn type. The result retains the coarseness of its nineteenth-century forebears while functioning as a coherent working family across five weights in normal and condensed widths.
Classification
Rooted in nineteenth-century sans serif jobbing types, Community Gothic is a grotesque that deliberately revives the coarse, irregular forms of that genre rather than smoothing them into a refined contemporary grotesque.