Typophile

National Geographic map font

goth_milk

I’m wanting to make a banner that will go with the fonts used in the maps that we just purchased here at work. I’ve tried using the following links to find this out on my own, but I’ve come up short in my searches. Any help is greatly appreciated!

http://www.linotype.com/fontidentifier.html

http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/

Text that is used on the bottom center of the map at http://www.ngmapstore.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=177&itemType=PRODUCT&iMainCat=6&iSubCat=46&iProductID=177

Another example of this font in question is seen http://www.ngmapstore.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=157&itemType=PRODUCT&iMainCat=6&iSubCat=47&iProductID=157

The final example is http://www.ngmapstore.com/shopping/product/detailmain.jsp?itemID=402&itemType=PRODUCT&iMainCat=6&iSubCat=44&iProductID=402

I also have done the zoom in feature and captured the 3 examples of this unknown font.

http://www.geocities.com/gothmilk_indy/the_world.txt

http://www.geocities.com/gothmilk_indy/the_united_states.txt

http://www.geocities.com/gothmilk_indy/europe.txt

Tiffany Wardle

shares similarities with hiroshige, but not a match.

Michael Yanega

It looks like a customized version of Gareth Hague’s ‘Harbour’. See the similarity in the S shape in this Veer Test Drive of the font:
Harbour sample

Chris Purcell

Doesn’t the National Geographic magazine use custom-designed typefaces?

Michael Yanega

Here’s a showing of the complete Harbour font, which I realize is only similar in certain letterform ‘skeletons’. I could easily imagine the National Geographic font being a member of the same family as Harbour, called ‘Seaport’, or ‘Dock’ (just kidding).

I did look through all the other Gareth Hague fonts I could see, but nothing was closer.

This was a recent question I thought. Was it a custom Geographic font?

goth_milk

I have no idea if National Geographic has their own line of fonts. I don’t know if this is a commercial font, or if it is something that only NG keeps hidden away in their graphics dept.

Thank you all for the help!

Michael Yanega

Doesn’t the National Geographic magazine use custom-designed typefaces?

Very often they do not. I like to play font-spotting with their title fonts for each story.

Captured from web.archive.org on 31 Aug 2018. view this capture