字Font of the week · · 2 min read
Big Shoulders: narrow headlines that stay loud
Big Shoulders is a condensed sans from Chicago with weight and optical-size axes. Built for posters, signs and phone headlines, free under the OFL.
The samurai has to turn sideways to get his shoulder plates through a door. Big Shoulders fits ‘Haftpflichtversicherung’ on a single phone line.
Patric King of XO Type designed Big Shoulders for the Chicago Design System, to give the city one consistent typographic voice. Its tall, narrow forms draw on Chicago’s railways, political posters and dance culture; there is also a Stencil and an Inline family. The typeface is released under the SIL Open Font License 1.1. You can use it freely, commercially too.
What sets it apart
- One file, two axes: weight from 100 to 900 and optical size from 10 to 72.
- Small sizes automatically get more space between letters, large sizes tighten up. The browser handles it for you.
- Narrow with a tall x-height: the German word ‘Haftpflichtversicherung’ fits on a 360-pixel phone line at 36 pixels bold.
- Small caps, proper fractions such as ½ and superior figures are built in.
If your headline
on a phone
looks
like this,
use Big Shoulders.
What it is good for
Anything that has to be loud and narrow: posters, signs, wayfinding, sports events, packaging and headlines on phones. It is strongest in capitals. Limits: there is no italic. The figures have different widths, so price columns will not line up neatly. It is too tight for long body text.
Collection today until 6 pm, same-day delivery.
Parcels up to 80 kg, ½ hour notice, prices from €9.50.
Exercise for this week
Set the longest headline on your website in Big Shoulders Bold and look at it 360 pixels wide. Count the lines you save.
