Ugly Gerry
Ugly Gerry is a font that uses the shapes of United States congressional districts for each of its characters, created in 2019 as a protest against gerrymandering. It was designed by Ben Doessel and James Lee of the Leo Burnett Agency in a project for RepresentUs.
Ugly Gerry
- Name
- Ugly Gerry
- Period
- 2019
VALÉORINE Encyclopedia
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Documentary summary
Ugly Gerry is a font that uses the shapes of United States congressional districts for each of its characters, created in 2019 as a protest against gerrymandering. It was designed by Ben Doessel and James Lee of the Leo Burnett Agency in a project for RepresentUs.
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Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
wikidata · Q85847878 · wikipedia · Ugly Gerry
In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Ugly Gerry • Style — Script (typefaces) • Creator — Ben Doessel and James Lee • Latin — yes (no digits) • Greek — no • Cyrillic — no
Design
Design
The designers' intention was to draw attention to gerrymandering: The team is from Chicago, and after seeing how janky our Illinois 4th district had become, we became interested in this issue.... Its notorious earmuff shape looked like a U, then after seeing other letters on the map, the idea hit us, let's create a typeface so our districts can become digital graffiti that voters and politicians can't ignore. Shapes that loosely resemble the letters 'A' through 'Z' were used to create the (uppercase) font. Some of these shapes are not of single districts but instead combine pairs. Ugly Gerry has been called "the world's most revolting font". • Letter — District(s) • A — California's 3rd and Texas's 35th • B — Ohio's 12th and 7th • C — Connecticut's 1st • D — Missouri's 8th • E — Missouri's 6th • F — Oregon's 5th • G — Ohio's 4th • H — North Carolina's 6th • I — Texas's 15th • J — Illinois's 18th • K — Alabama's 1st • L — New York's 7th • M — New York's 8th • N — Illinois's 11th • O — Arizona's 6th • P — Florida's 25th • Q — Texas's 12th • R — Ohio's 10th and Michigan's 13th • S — Tennessee's 4th • T — California's 43rd • U — Illinois's 4th • V — New Jersey's 5th • W — New York's 8th • X — California's 8th and 14th • Y — Illinois's 12th • Z — Indiana's 8th and Ohio's 8th
Usability
Usability
The Ugly Gerry font has no numerals or special characters. It provides only the capital letters 'A' to 'Z' (no lowercase) and some punctuation. At the foot of each page of its website is "No rights reserved".
Recognition
Recognition
Ugly Gerry won the 2020 ADC Award for typography.
Chronology
Dated record
Chronology
The full dated record · 2 entries
2019
Ugly Gerry first recorded.
2019
Ugly Gerry is recorded from 2019.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Epstein, Kayla. How do you spell 'gerrymandering is bad?' With a font made out of preposterous districts. Washington Post. August 3, 2019.
- 2.Panetta, Grace. There's a new downloadable font inspired by gerrymandered congressional districts. Business Insider. August 2, 2019.
- 3.Ugly Gerry Font. Fonts Arena. August 2, 2019.
- 4.Beschizza, Rob. Ugly Gerry, a font based on gerrymandered districts. Boing Boing. August 1, 2019.
- 5.Campbell-Dollaghan, Kelsey. The world's most revolting font is made out of gerrymandered voting districts. Fast Company. August 2, 2019.
- 6.2020 ADC Awards - Typography: Ugly Gerry. The One Club for Creativity.
- 7.Coldewey, Devin. This free, ugly font is made from hideously gerrymandered districts. TechCrunch. August 2, 2019.
- 8.Lyons, Kathryn. Ugly Gerry wants you to know the 'ugly' truth about gerrymandering. Roll Call. August 2, 2019.
- 9.Ugly Gerry.
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
reference work
Secondary witnessreference work
Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 16 August 2026.
Elsewhere in Books
39,529 published records in this field, each with its sources named.
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