Typophile

Steelmark Logo Typeface

hellojon

Hello folks,

I’m attempting to figure out what typeface this 1962 Steelmark logo is set in... Incidentally, this would be the same typeface that my beloved Steelers’ logo is set in as well. Sometime in the early 60’s, the Steelers petitioned the American Iron and Steel Institute to change the word ’Steel’ to ’Steelers’. So they added a lowercase ’r’ at that time. It’s a distinctive lowercase ’r’. I thought I’d check here to see if anyone had any guesses. Thanks!

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Lex Kominek

I’m thinking this is hand-drawn.

- Lex

Bald Condensed

Except for the t, this is pretty similar to Gothic No. 13.

Michael Yanega

I think it was a custom design. The most unusual feature is the ’e’, which is somewhat like that in Aachen. With the Steelmark colors and these letters, it might not be obvious at first that this isn’t the exact original typeface. A little editing to remove the serifs would make the resemblance even closer.

- Mike Yanega

hellojon

Excellent. Thanks for the suggestions. I’m in touch with the American Iron and Steel Institute, and I’m assuming what they will tell me is that it is custom. On my Steelers t-shirt, I just noticed that the crossbar of the ’t’ is shorter on the left than it is on the right. I thought maybe it was to accomodate for the ’S’, a sign of it being hand drawn, but maybe this is normal feature of this type of lowercase ’t’...

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