FF Govan Alternatives

FF Govan is a small family of chunky sanses in three widths. In 1999, Glasgow was designated the UK City of Architecture and Design. MetaDesign performed a great degree of creative work for this campaign, including this typeface, designed by Erik Spiekermann and Ole Schäfer. In design history, Glasgow is famous for the art nouveau work of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928). While conducting the inial studies typeface that would become FF Govan, Schäfer chanced upon a memo from Prof. Andy MacMillian of the Mackintosh School of Architecture that described Glasgow as “Scottish in its stone, European in its urban pedigree, American in its gridiron plan.” This laid out a conceptual framework for the design. It was important that the Glasgow typeface be flexible. FF Govan ties together contemporary sans letterforms with elements that hint toward Mackintosh’s lettering. The fonts include a number of alternates, ligatures, and icons, useful for wayfinding signage. The OpenType versions of FF Govan include a number of alternate features initially made as separate variants, including ascenders and descenders of differing length.