State fonts

[DukeofChutney]

States have various official symbols from flora and fauna to beverages, so why not fonts?

 

Inspirsed by a conversation in another thread where  Gill Sans was refered to be a 'very British font', what fonts would best represent a city, state or country - for example, would New York be Helvetica (as its used on the subway signage)?

[packerfan21396]

Well, every state has a tourism brand, which in turn, has a font, so technically, there are state fonts already.

 

Here's all the brands (sized so that state names have the same cap height, causing North Carolina to be so massive and Michigan to be so tiny):

 

Which boil down to these fonts:

 

Meaning, Helvetica actually goes to Montana, while New York takes American Typewriter instead.  This method gives you a fantastic handwritten font for West Virginia and the classic South Dakota brush script and Mississippi quad-S; but you also get duds like Maryland and Massachusetts.

[johnrafael]

Speaking from the Point of View of someone outside the United States. I wonder to what extent it serves to create ideals and stereotypes, like, "Maine is a small, quiet state where most people avoid the hustle and bustle and prefer the habit of reading." I mean, I have no idea if Maine is like that, but when I think of this serif font, something like that comes to mind.

[DTConcepts]

FWIW, Colorado's official State Font is Museo Slab 500.

[GriffinM6]

Georgia has an official wordmark aside from the tourism one. It's found on the welcome signs to the state and you can usually find it at the end of the credits of a Marvel movie. 

[GeauxColonels]

11 hours ago, packerfan21396 said:

Mississippi quad-S;

A personal favorite of mine for years.

[packerfan21396]

In compiling everything, I made the executive decision to treat state government brands as separate from tourism brands because they're usually blander and more corporate, similar to institutional and athletic logos at universities.

[LMU]

License plates can also be a source of state wordmarks.  California's is pretty much synonymous at this point.

[Sec19Row53]

9 hours ago, LMU said:

License plates can also be a source of state wordmarks.  California's is pretty much synonymous at this point.

Along those lines, I used to enjoy when Virginia used the same font on their athletic uniforms as was on the license plate.

[-kj]

I (irrationally?) hate that California script.  It's just so janky, especially that the i and a don't connect.  Oh, and the two is are different.

[packerfan21396]

On 10/28/2021 at 4:34 PM, -kj said:

I (irrationally?) hate that California script.  It's just so janky, especially that the i and a don't connect.  Oh, and the two is are different.

The a's are different too, you might not be a fan of handwriting in general then.

 

Font Compilation 2: Electric Boogaloo

[DTConcepts]

I feel like using license plate fonts on their own as 'State Fonts' isn't an accurate way of portraying them. Like, Colorado's license plate font is generic and boring, and it doesn't really represent the state. The license plate as a whole, however...

 

Much more iconic.