Trade Gothic is a lineale type with short ascenders and descenders. This sans serif is classified as Grotesque and is 19th century in style, with the exception of the ‘g’. It is unique because of its variation of underlying structure across the entire family. For instance, the bold condensed form is significantly more square-sided and mechanistic than its lighter weight counterparts. Because of this variation, Trade Gothic fits a wide range of uses. Its bold condensed fonts have become quite popular in newspaper headlines.
Designed by Jackson Burke, Trade Gothic is very similar to News Gothic. In 1948, when American gothics returned to popularity after European sans serifs has replaced them for a while, the small sizes were recut to match the larger ones and Linotype changed the name to Trade Gothic Condensed and Extra Condensed. The light and regular weights are virtually the same as News Gothic, but the bold weight has flat sides on its round letters, making it a wider version of Alternate Gothic, and unlike News Gothic Bold. Trade Gothic Extended and Bold Extended were introduced in 1959 with round sides, and Trade Gothic Light and Italic were released in 1962.
Jackson Burke was born in San Francisco, CA in 1908 and attended the University of California – Berkeley. After serving in World War II he spent a short period as a private printer. In 1949 he took over as the Director of Type Development for Mergenthaler Linotype, where he stayed until 1963. During this time, Burke oversaw the production of typefaces in which the vast majority of American newspapers were set for nearly half a century. He is responsible for the development of the TeleTypesetting System (TTS) used in magazine production. In addition to Trade Gothic, he also designed Majestic (1953-56) and Aurora (1960), as well as fonts for Native American languages. He died in 1975.
Since it was nearly impossible to find anything related to this typeface, I couldn't find many options regarding concept. My concept deals with newspapers since the typeface was commonly used in newspaper headlines. I'm not really sure what direction I want to go with it, but I'd greatly appreciate any suggestions you might have. I'm thinking I could set up my typesetting examples like newspaper articles with the font name as the headline. Other than that, I'm kind of lost. Let me know what you think. Thanks.
Camille, good research and bio. Yeah, the newspaper concept is a good/safe idea. Maybe you can push the idea a bit further. What about famous newspaper headlines. A series... Landing on the moon, bombing of Pearl Harbor, etc. Using those as a platform for the information.
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