Fonts from The Big City

Vernacular architectural lettering from the metropolis as digital fonts.

Yves Peters

Last edited April 15, 2015

Similar to Batman’s Gotham City or Fritz Lang’s Metropolis embodying the archetypical metropolis in pop culture, these fonts capture the essence of the vernacular architectural lettering in those imaginary cities. You can picture the capital letters with square proportions above the entrances of stately skyscrapers and high-end boutiques, just as well as on the shop windows of the neighbourhood delis and laundromats. Of course the fonts offer more than just capitals: they feature complete character sets, and most of them come in a wide range of weights, some even several widths.

To download a font from this Fontlist, clicking its name will take you to the family page where you can choose and purchase single weights or volumes. For free fonts see our Free Fonts Fontlist.

FF Mark is one of the most iconic geometric sans serif typefaces of our time. Created by German type designers Hannes von Döhren, Christoph Koeberlin, and the FontFont Type Department in 2013, this versatile family draws on historical examples from German geometry in the 1920s. With additional creative input of Erik Spiekermann, they created a contemporary interpretation of classic German... Read More

Basic Commercial is a font based on historical designs from the hot metal typeface era. It first appeared around 1900, and was created by type designers whose names have not been recorded but whose skills cannot be overlooked. This typeface's design has been popular among groups and movements as diverse as the Bauhaus, Dadaism, and the masters of Swiss/International-Style typography. It... Read More

FF Bau is a large workhorse family of sans serif typefaces drawn in the “Grotesk” genre. Christian Schwartz is its designer, working under the inspiration of Grotesk types cast by the Schelter & Giesecke foundry in Leipzig. Schelter & Giesecke sold these popular Grotesks for many decades; they were first introduced around 1880. When the Bauhaus moved nearby in Dessau in the mid-1920s, these... Read More