font_foundry: Design is Culture

Vitrina

Vitrina is a script based on letterforms painted on a window for a restaurant called “Latin American Cafeteria”. Its quirky script forms are meant to evoke a sense of hand painted signage. Vitrina means...

Sailor Gothic

A font by Christian Acker (2003), based upon the practice of the Americana folk art tradition of tattoo design. Throughout the late 19th and 20th Centuries sailors would popularize and spread motifs, designs and...

North Bergen

North Bergen is a dirty sans serif based on letterforms seen painted on a wall of a magazine store in North Bergen, New Jersey. Its unrefined, quirky forms reflect a typographic naivete and are...

Cuba

The inspiration for Cuba comes from a sign for the restaurant “La Flor de Cuba” on Bergenline Avenue in Union City, New Jersey. Its blocky, dimensional forms are reminiscent of letterforms seen in signs...

24 HRS

A font designed by Christian Acker (2002), based upon neon signage in downtown New York. 24Hrs was an exercise in creating flat artwork from the inspiration of neon’s three dimensional forms. All of the...

1st Ave

1st Ave is the most experimental of my typefaces. I took a picture of a metal and neon sign in the East Village of New York City. These signs are slowly being replaced by...

Marquee

In 1994 I took a picture of an old movie marquee in Times Square, New York City. 7 years later, I decided to design a typeface based on the big plastic letters found in...

Medina Gothic

Medina Gothic is a three-weight sans serif inspired by Latin American moderne. It was designed in response to the 2002, Altos de Chavon design conference in The Dominican Republic, which celebrated utilitarian driven gestures...

Calaveras

In August of 2009, I was commissioned by Zoo York, a New York City based skateboard company, to visit Buenos Aires to study and document street typography. As soon as my taxi driver took...

Diablitos