Welcome

In 1953, California standardized the state flag in law, but only gave a rough visualization of the letters CALIFORNIA REPUBLIC. This project aims to create an entire typeface, inspired by high-quality scans of the original drawing in the 1953 law.

Download the TTF file if you'd like to use this font on your computer:
CaliforniaGothic-Regular.ttf

This is Version 2 of the typeface. If you are interested in the project, you can follow the repository on GitHub: github.com/mattlag/California-Gothic

Font

California Gothic is an all-caps typeface that includes 433 characters:

Full character ranges
Partial character ranges

Sample

Inspiration

Section 420 of the Government Code says:

The general design and the details of the Bear Flag, excluding colors, shall correspond substantially with the following representation:

But the law makes no mention about a specific typeface to be used for the words CALIFORNIA REPUBLIC.

I have probably the closest thing to an "official" California flag - one purchased from the state capital, that actually flew over the capital building. Looking at this, and at other flags available online, it seems as if flag makers simply vectorize the letters, as opposed to finding a similar typeface to the image above.

Here you can see the picture from the law, a picture of my flag, and the typeface:


I would guess that whoever was in charge of creating the image for the law didn't design the glyphs as if they were part of a larger typeface. Looking through the letters, there are certainly some odd parts (from a typeface design perspective, that is), but for this project, I just took that as "character" and went with it.

And as you look at it, the glyphs in the law are fairly consistent. The flag, on the other hand, is pretty horrible once you get into the details. The C's and the B are especially chunky, and the repeated letters don't even match each other.

So, the typeface was mostly based on the image from the law. The full set of glyphs was rounded out using the feel and character of the existing glyphs on the flag. Any completely new glyph features were gleaned from other Bold Condensed Grotesque or Gothic typefaces.



That's it! Any questions or comments? Send me an email!