VTC Martin
Vocal Type · 2016
A display gothic family drawn from the letterpress 'I AM A MAN' placards of the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Strike, tracing its letterforms back to Hamilton Gothic No. 6243 from 1906.
About
The letterforms originate from a 1960 Hamilton Wood Type catalogue discovered on eBay, which identified the typeface used on the protest signs as Gothic No. 6243. Additional weights were drawn from other Hamilton Gothic typefaces, and punctuation was sourced from early 1960s issues of The Baltimore Afro-American Newspaper. First released in June 2016 as Vocal Type's debut font, the family has since grown into two subfamilies: VTC Martin, with variable weights and italics, and VTC Martin Display, which preserves the original's bold uppercase and lighter lowercase contrast.
Classification
Letterforms derived directly from letterpress Hamilton Gothic No. 6243 wood type, as used on the 'I AM A MAN' protest placards of 1968; a display gothic with historical wood type lineage.