308: Evolving Gotham: Sara Soskolne of Monotype on Expanding One of the World’s Most Recognizable Typefaces

This is the final episode in a 4-part guest lecture series, speaking with an incredible range of design and typography pros from across North America! 

Today’s conversation is with Sara Soskolne of Monotype, sharing her 20-year history of working on one of the world’s most recognizable typefaces: Gotham.

Sara is a typeface designer and Executive Creative Director at Monotype. As a reformed bookworm her deepest inspiration as a designer is the experience of reading, and her abiding interest is in creating typefaces which not only serve but enrich that experience.

Prior to joining Monotype, Sara was the senior designer at Hoefler&Co and played a part in nearly every release after her arrival there in 2005 — as a designer, and later also through her oversight of the type design team. She made significant contributions to the Verlag, Chronicle, Gotham, Tungsten, Idlewild, Numbers, Sentinel, and Whitney families, and played a formative role in the design of Quarto, Ringside, and Decimal.

As an only partially reformed Torontonian living in New York, Sara still spells like a Canadian and can’t really think in Fahrenheit.

In this conversation, you’ll hear about Sara’s origin story in graphic and type design, including how she’s experienced collaboration in commercial type design. Sara shares her recent contributions to Gotham, working directly with the Obama Foundation for the opening of the Barack Obama Presidential Centre in Chicago. Sara gets delightfully technical about Gotham’s letterforms, pulling back the curtain on the decisions made in the expansion of this iconic type family, including for the brand new Gotham variable font. Sara talks about how success is measured in a big project like this and how she knows when the work is done. Finally, Sara shares her advice about what current and future type designers can do to stay on top of the changing landscape. 

I absolutely encourage you to watch one of my very favourite documentaries that just so happens to showcase some of Sara’s work at Hoefler&Co. It’s available on Netflix and the series is called Abstract: The Art of Design. Their episode is S02 E06. And, Jonathan, if you’re listening, I would absolutely love to chat with you about your incredible career and legacy as a typeface designer. Hopefully we can make that happen one day soon!

Please excuse the weird audio on my end. I forgot to bring my mic to class and, well, the show must go on! 

This episode was recorded as part of a guest lecture series in GCM 806 - Advanced Typography in Winter 2026 at The Creative School at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Let’s listen in…

About Our Guest:

Sara Soskolne is a typeface designer and Executive Creative Director at Monotype. As a reformed bookworm her deepest inspiration as a designer is the experience of reading, and her abiding interest is in creating typefaces which not only serve but enrich that experience.

Prior to joining Monotype, Sara was the senior designer at Hoefler&Co and played a part in nearly every release after her arrival there in 2005 — as a designer, and later also through her oversight of the type design team. Among these she made significant contributions to the Verlag, Chronicle, Gotham, Tungsten, Idlewild, Numbers, Sentinel, and Whitney families, and played a formative role in the design of Quarto, Ringside, and Decimal.

As an only partially reformed Torontonian living in New York, Sara still spells like a Canadian and can’t really think in Fahrenheit.

---

Music:

Bubbles ( Lofi , Bright , Relaxed ) by HoliznaCC0 is licensed under a CC0 1.0 Universal License.

Talk Paper Scissors Theme Music: Retro Quirky Upbeat Funk by Lewis Sound Production via Audio Jungle

Boat Origami Photo: Boat Origami Photo by Alex on Unsplash