Description

* Only the basic character set is shown here. For a sample character map see the MLC Font Project page.
Classification
Monument Roman: Block/Square Raised
Usage
The Government block alphabet was created for government issued tablets, used only for certain tablet designs for veterans of the Civil and Spanish-American Wars, and on marble posts for the designation of areas within Government owned cemeteries.
History & Designer
The Government Block font was created to standardize the lettering used on the ‘Old Style’ Government-issued tablets for military veterans. The earliest specification drawing known by the MLC to exist is from 1954. Prior to the standardization, the lettering varied depending on the manufacturer. Including “round-raised” lettering similar to the Common Gothic style. The exact date of creation and the designer of the alphabet are unknown.
Distinguishing Features
All letters of the alphabet contain clipped or “splayed” corners at 45 degrees, both on the inside and outside edges. An interesting feature is the seemingly lackadaisical or random widths of many of the letters. For instance, the letters, ‘A’, ‘E’, ‘F”, ‘T’, and ‘R’ are quite narrow, while the letters ‘C’, ‘D’, ‘H’, and ‘W’ are optically too wide comparatively. Some letters which should share the same width in a block style font, like ‘O’ and ‘C’ do not. This lack of cohesion would be an unusual design for someone with professional knowledge of the construction of the Latin alphabet. This becomes more interesting when viewing the newer specification drawings, which contain detailed instructions insuring that the letters are engraved to these specific widths.
Characters
The Veterans Association has very strict rules on the punctuation for VA-supplied headstones using the original typical Government font. This roman style serifed font does contain an ampersand, commas, parenthesis, etc., while periods are not allowed. The font also does allow for the usage of certain diacritic marks. However, in the case of the Government block font the specification drawings contain a period, but little else. Due to the lack of punctuation and diacritic mark information, the MLC has simply included a full punctuation set and multilingual diacritic marks. Typical of all MLC fonts, the MLC Government Block font includes multiple styles of lowercase ‘c’ used for abbreviations of Gaelic surnames. These alternates are available as OpenType alternates when using software which supports OpenType features.