Barack Obama & Gotham
Ninja February 21st, 2008
Penguin and I were just talking about Barack Obama and Gotham (designed by Hoefler & Frere-Jones). Literally, I just hung up the phone with him. And then I saw this photo and post on the Helvetica film blog. I’ve got to say, Obama’s campaign designers, John Slabyk and Scott Thomas, have good taste.
Gotham was originally commissioned for GQ Magazine. Being the dork I am, I stole Penguin’s GQ when Gotham was released. I uh, also stole his Esquire mag when Mercury was released.
So why Gotham…
Related postsJonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones spoke about the creation of Gotham during our interview for Helvetica, and looking back at their description of what GQ wanted from the font, it sounds surprisingly Obama-esque. “GQ had a dual agenda of wanting something that would look very fresh, yet very established, to have a credible voice to it,” says Hoefler. It also needed to look very masculine and “of-the-moment.” Mission accomplished.
