Typography for Topography: BellTopo Sans Typeface & Free Font

In 2018, I made a few maps that were inspired by the design of the earliest USGS Topos. I had a lot of fun doing it too. I tried to pick areas with large bodies of water, since the concentric shorelines that were popular in maps from the 1800s & early 1900s are super enjoyable to make (my tutorial here!) Much of the time that I spent on these maps was hunting for the right typeface. Specifically, the upright sans serif delicious typeface that was used on much of the physical features like mountains, valleys, beaches, meadows, etc. (Like you, I too see the irony of serif italics for that phrase in previous sentence.)

When you see this typeface that I’m referring to on these old beautiful maps, you may think it is nothing special. It’s simple. It might even be very similar to a common font that you already know. Perhaps you’re thinking, “Why didn’t she use that font?” But for me, the beauty of this typeface that I see on old USGS maps exists within its subtle differences. I included some screenshots at the end of this post highlighting some of the beautiful characters from this typeface in the early USGS maps. I will elaborate more on these characters later. But I am soon leaving for a month of work travel, and I want to release this font into the world before time becomes too sparse.

While making my own USGS-inspired maps, my search never returned the exact type of font I was looking for. The fruitless search was serendipitous however, because it provided the push to make my own. It was designed for map labels that are no larger than 80-100pt, but usually much smaller. I decided to name it BellTopo Sans with the plan to create a serif version. There might be additional tweaks too, so keep looking for those updates! (THERE HAVE BEEN UPDATES. See below).

UPDATE:

As of September 14, 2020, the BellTopo Sans font has new upgrades and improvments, including an End User License Agreement. To continue to use BellTopo Sans, you must agree to the Font Software End User License Agreement (EULA).

You may download BellTopo Sans here and use it for free. Please read the latest for details on the upgrade.

To be quite honest, I’ve never released a font into the world. With all the wonderful type designers out there, it is a bit intimidating! Although I did spend a lot of time on kerning, I am still discovering letter pairs that can be improved. There are also some characters and glyphs that I plan on adding to this font. Nevertheless, after all those hours of kerning, it is rewarding to see a font that you’ve created in paragraph form. While it was designed specifically for map labels for some maps that I’m making, it does pretty well in lorem ipsum.

The appearance of “Vermilion Valley,” “Bear Ridge”, “Bear Dome,” and “Infant Buttes” inspired Bell Topo Sans.

The “g” in “Mt Morgan” and Mt Hilgard, the high cross on the lower-case “t,” and that lovely squishy “S” in “Sierra” are all major draws to this typeface for me.

What’s not to love about this image below? Firstly, there is a place in California called “Evolution Valley,” and it is gorgeous. Also, check out that word’s lowercase “y.” and the “k” in “Emerald Pk” is so deliberate yet soft. The uppercase “M” is so fantastic.

UPDATE! New characters and glyphs added

These updates require that you re-download your copy of this font. You will probably want to delete your old copy too, since they have different file names.

Check back for updates on this font. Happy labeling!