Creative director David Curcurito and art director Stravinski Pierre at Esquire commissioned a new serif headline face by Christian Schwartz for the magazine's special 1000th issue. Named Gingrich, after founding editor Arnold Gingrich (and completely unrelated to any current or former politicians), this face was designed to combine with the magazine's existing type palette of Granger, drawn by Atelier Carvalho Bernau for the magazine in 2011, Graphik, and Esquire Text, commissioned by Robert Priest for the magazine during his tenure in the late 1990s and later released by H&Co as Mercury Text. Since Granger is made of square forms and Graphik is built on circular forms, it seemed logical to make Gingrich as sharp and triangular as possible, and also condensed so it could be set very large. Schwartz looked back at the various Moderns used throughout Esquire's past and at the Times New Roman used during its New Journalism period, synthesizing these into a sharp, tight headline face.
Where Times has ball terminals, Gingrich has spikes, but the angled stress of Times keeps the face from looking too stiff and static. Confident and aggressive in all caps, the curves and elegance of the lowercase keep the face from becoming overbearing. Gingrich is comprised of 4 optical sizes in a single weight. Like the issue, it's meant to nod to the magazine's past while looking relentlessly forward.
