Interborough Medium

Interborough is a transitional wedge serif loosely based on the work of Heins & LaFarge.

Working in the Romanesque style, these early 1900’s architects designed the stations for New York City’s Interborough Rapid Transit subway system, a precursor to the city’s modern-day network.

They also designed the stations’ historical signage—the colorful tile mosaics that were the primary source of wayfinding before the modernist standardization of the 1960’s.

After using Heins & LaFarge’s strong architectural lines as a starting point, I updated the character set with the sharpness of contemporary typefaces. “Layback“ bowls that breach the cap-line of uppercase characters such as B, D, P, and R give it some of the personality of the historical subway signage.

Interborough is best used in headline settings because of its detailed characters, but it is also suitable for body copy on account of its large x-height.