The Hardest Working Font in Manhattan

On top of that, Gorton’s longevity must have felt attractive. Ink smudges. Paint fades away. Paper can catch fire (quickly) or germs (slowly). Carve something into plastic, on the other hand, and it can survive decades. Substitute plastic for metal, and you just turned decades into centuries. The text is not added atop heavy-duty material. The text is the material.

And unsurprising given its roots, Gorton has dimensionality that most fonts cannot ever enjoy: A routing tip picked in the 1980s and sun coming in from just the right angle forty years later can create a moment that thousands of letterpress cards could only dream of.