December 7th, 2024

Now Boarding: The Story of Airport

The Airport typeface, designed by Matthew Carter for London Airport in the 1960s, aimed for legibility but was overshadowed by Helvetica. Its variants introduced in 1985 gained little recognition.

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The story of the Airport typeface begins with its design for London Airport, now known as Heathrow, in the early 1960s. Matthew Carter was commissioned by designer Colin Forbes to create a sans-serif typeface based on Akzidenz-Grotesk for signage at the newly opened Oceanic terminal. The design aimed to enhance legibility for travelers, with features like a larger x-height and horizontal stroke terminals. Although the typeface shares similarities with Helvetica, Carter had not encountered it during the design process. The Airport typeface was commercially available in phototype form and was included in various catalogs. Over time, it became overshadowed by Helvetica, leading to a decline in its use. In 1985, a catalog by Layout-Setzerei Stulle introduced variants of Airport, including Airport Round and Airport Spotlight, but these were not widely recognized. The limited literature on the typeface includes two notable books, which the author sought out to deepen their understanding of its history. The research journey involved acquiring rare books and contacting Carter for insights into the typeface's evolution. Despite its initial prominence, Airport's legacy has been somewhat forgotten, with only a few references remaining in design discussions today.

- The Airport typeface was designed by Matthew Carter for London Airport in the early 1960s.

- It was based on Akzidenz-Grotesk and aimed to improve legibility for signage.

- The typeface became overshadowed by Helvetica over time.

- Variants of Airport were introduced in 1985 but did not gain significant traction.

- Limited literature exists on the typeface, prompting further research by enthusiasts.

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5 comments

By @solardev - 4 months

I didn't read the story (too long), but I really love the site design. It's beautiful and clean without being boring, with great use of typography (of course) and the grid and whitespace. Responsive too, and doesn't hijack your scrolling like so many animated sites do.

Hope they make more pages like that.

By @throw0101b - 4 months

For anyone curious about the clock design:

* https://airport.revolvertype.com/img/620px_clock.gif

It seems to be inspired by Swiss rail clocks:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_railway_clock

You can purchase clocks and watches in the style:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondaine

By @hinnisdael - 4 months

What a great font! Very matter-of-fact, but with some stylistic choices that give it just enough character to be interesting. The x-height in the original version is too large for setting body copy, but the variable font comes with an axis for the optical size, which allows tweaking the x-height individually.

By @rob74 - 4 months

If this GIF (https://airport.revolvertype.com/img/typewriter_airports.gif) is supposed to emulate the good old split-flap displays, then it kind of misses the point - on those displays, the letters changed individually, so the font would need to be fixed width (and uppercase).

By @prmoustache - 4 months

Am I the only one who don't understand these desktop (per-user), webfonts (per-view), apps and ebook licensing models?

This is just too convoluted and complicated. What does desktop per-user even mean? Am I allowed to use the font and use it to produce a document if I pay for a 1-5 users license ? or do I have to pay more if that document ends up in the hand of more than 10 users? What if that document end up being a pdf that people might share all over the world? Have I right to use/reference it but not to embed it? What about views? If my blog get 4000 views on a regular basis but a post end up viral and views explode to hundreds of thousands? Am I suddenly in debt with the font creator?

For a start, a webfont is not different from a desktop font. It is a font and that's it.

Just put one single license at 1000usd for the individual one and 4000usd for the pack if you value your font that much for f... sakes.