2311
Posted on June 21st, 2007 – 10:38 PMBy Jason Hammond
Today we received the official address for our house — 2311, before today it had been just lot 2, of block 3 as the legal description. What I’m about to say next will most likely only make sense to you if you are a graphic designer or typographer — but I was hoping for some sexier numbers. I mean the 2 and the 3 are great but 1 is not a sexy number and then to get two of them, this just creates a kerning (adjusting the space between letters to create a visual balance) nightmare. I was hoping for an 8 or maybe a 7, actually I would have been most please with any number outside of the double snake eyes. No matter what you do with it or what font you choose the number 1 just doesn’t have the visual appeal of the other numbers, even “0″ has more personality.
Anyhow enough of my complaining, I thought I’d take a little time to show some cool house numbers that I’ve found over the past few months. Most people just go to the local hardware store or the home improvement center and take whatever they see on the shelf. Maybe if they’re feeling daring they’ll spend a little more money and pick some numbers up at Restoration Hardware or another boutique home shop. When you think about it your house numbers are sort of like your homes name and to me it’s a little sad to just do something off the shelf when there are tens of thousands of fonts out there that can say so much more about your home and the people who live in it.
There are several websites that offer some beautiful font options for house numbers in great materials like custmhousenumbers.com, eichlernumbers.com or studiofe.com. Or if you’re not up for paying this much money for your house numbers get a graphic designer friends to give you some font options that may work with your house style. Print them out at the actual size you want your house numbers to be and then trace them on to some wood and you can cut them out yourself with a jigsaw and give them a cool paint finish or just add some clear coat. Either way I think having just the right house numbers are important and can make a big statement about you and your house.
Most people think Nutraface for modern house numbers but
I’m drawn to the big bold slab shapes of Franklin Gothic like
the ones shown here from customhousenumbers.com.
Another great option is a simple, modern industrial font like
Compacta from customhousenumbers.com.
Here’s a great treatment in brushed aluminum on a sheet
of oxidized metal studiofe.com.
Heres a simple reversed treatment from studiofe.com that
really gives the industrial feel.
6 Responses to "2311"
Jason,
I know exactly what you mean. We have the very unsexy house number 11a. 
I’m looking forward to buing 2762 for our house in Florida, and I think I’ll choose these http://www.dwr.com/productdetail.cfm?id=6352. But your examples above are also cool.
Connie
Those are some great looking house numbers as well. There’s a DWR store in Mpls. maybe I’ll check them out as well.
Thanks,
Jason
It’s funny, even before I really saw the pictures that you had for examples of numbers. The Franklin Gothic font was the first one that popped into my head for something for an interesting font with a desent looking number “1″. And, then you had the picture of it in the blog
Thanks.
The “8″ is really beautiful in Franklin Gothic as well and was part of the reason I was hoping to get one in our address.
Jason
Compacta looks like it would be difficult to read from the street by anyone with less than perfect vision. Don’t know how they’d tell those sixes from eights.
Hi Trudy,
I guess it would depend on the numbers you would need to use and is something you should always consider when choosing a font for any purpose. Our address (2311) leaves less room for misinterpretation than what is shown here. As well they will be attached to our mailbox at the street (you can see this in an earlier post).
Ultimately we’ve decided to use a different font (Franklin Gothic) that I
feel works better.
Jason
