Big✶✶✶✶ Shoulders is a suite of typefaces for Chicagoans
Download: XO Type Co or Google Fonts. Big Shoulders will always be free to download and use.
Part of the Chicago Design System. Read how the design came about at XO Type Co.
Big Shoulders has 8 weights Thin Light Regular Medium SemiBold Bold ExtraBold Black ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz {[(0123456789)]}!?@#$£¥%^&*®©™ case-sensitive forms help uppercase lines read smoothly info@chicago.gov info@chicago.gov ¿¡que!? ¿¡que!? True Small Caps in every weight
Big Shoulders takes its name from the poem “Chicago” by Carl Sandburg, written in 1914
Chicago
Hog Butcher for the World, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them,
for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill
and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city,
and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded, Shoveling, Wrecking, Planning, Building, breaking, rebuilding, Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth,
laughing with white teeth, Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs, Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle, Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people, Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.
Made for the Chicago Design System by XO Type Co