News Gothic
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| Category | Sans-serif |
|---|---|
| Classification | Grotesque sans-serif |
| Designer(s) | Morris Fuller Benton |
| Foundry | American Type Founders |
News Gothic is a realist sans-serif typeface designed by Morris Fuller Benton, and released by the American Type Founders (ATF) in 1908. The typeface was originally drawn in two lighter weights, a medium text weight using the title News Gothic, and a closely related light weight marketed under the name Lightline Gothic. The typeface family was enlarged in 1958 with the addition of two bold weights. News Gothic is similar in proportion and structure to Franklin Gothic, also designed by Benton, but lighter.
News Gothic, like other Benton sans serif typefaces, follows the grotesque model. Shapes that distinguish it from the neo-grotesque are the two-story lowercase a and the two-story lowercase g. Also distinctive are the blunt terminus at the apex of the lowercase t, and the location of the tail of the uppercase Q completely outside the bowl. The letter forms are compact, and descenders are shallow. The typeface differs from other realist sans-serifs in its organic shapes and subtle transitions of stroke width, all contributing to a less severe, humanist tone of voice. For much of the twentieth century News Gothic was used in newspaper and magazine publishing. For use in headlines, it was designed with condensed and extra-condensed styles.
'Gothic' was an early twentieth century term for sans-serifs, found mostly in the United States and Canada. It was also used in the UK, along with 'grotesque'. In Germany the term 'Grotesk' was used.
As with Franklin Gothic, the foundry expanded the line sometime later, adding two more variants:
Virtually all producers of cold type offered their own versions of News Gothic under different names:
Because there is no active descendant of the American Type Founders Corporation making digital typefaces, News Gothic has been revived in digital form in many different versions from different sources.
Benton Sans is a greatly expanded font family based on News Gothic by Font Bureau, adding additional features such as wide styles and extra-bold weights. At 80 styles, it is one of the most comprehensive digital renditions of the News Gothic style. Its users include Newsweek, Fortune magazine, the Boston Globe and Sotheby's.
Digital releases actually named News Gothic have a variety of features, often adding in weights not present in the original design or removing some less popular ones. For example, Bitstream's release is rare in including the extra-condensed styles. URW++'s (also sold by Fontsite) is only sold in one width but in a wide range of weights and with italics for every weight, while Linotype's lacks a light weight or any condensed styles. Monotype's revival, a subset of which is included with many Microsoft products, features the condensed style but not extra-condensed, and has wider spacing than several others. Adobe, Monotype, Linotype and Bitstream have their own versions. The Bitstream version of News Gothic was extended with Cyrillic glyphs in 2005 and Greek glyphs in 2009 by Dmitry Kirsanov for ParaType, and is sold by them separately.
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