Find 317 listings related to Mac in Franklin on YP.com. See reviews, photos, directions, phone numbers and more for Mac locations in Franklin, MA. Making the web more beautiful, fast, and open through great typography.

Category	Sans-serif
Classification	Grotesque
Designer(s)	Morris Fuller Benton
Foundry	American Type Founders
Date released	1902–1967
Also known as	Gothic #1, Square Gothic Heavy, Gothic #16

Franklin Gothic and its related faces are a large family of sans-seriftypefaces in the industrial or grotesque style developed in the early years of the 20th century by the type foundry American Type Founders (ATF) and credited to its head designer Morris Fuller Benton.^[1] “Gothic” was a contemporary term (now little-used except to describe period designs) meaning sans-serif.

Franklin Gothic has been used in many advertisements and headlines in newspapers. The typeface continues to maintain a high profile, appearing in a variety of media from books to billboards. Despite a period of eclipse in the 1930s, after the introduction of European faces like Kabel and Futura, they were re-discovered by American designers in the 1940s and have remained popular ever since. Benton's Franklin Gothic family is a set of solid designs, particularly suitable for display and trade use such as headlines rather than for extended text. Many versions and adaptations have been made since.

Probably the best-known extension of Franklin Gothic is Victor Caruso's 1970s ITC Franklin Gothic, which expands the series to include book weights similar to Benton's News Gothic in a high x-height 1970s style. It is in part bundled with Microsoft Windows.^[2]^[3]

History[edit]

A guide explaining the names used by ATF for their many somewhat related 'gothic' types.

Franklin Gothic itself is an extra-bold sans-serif type. It draws upon earlier, nineteenth century models, from many of the twenty-three foundries consolidated into American Type Founders in 1892. Historian Alexander Lawson speculated that Franklin Gothic was influenced by Berthold’s Akzidenz-Grotesk types but offered no evidence to support this theory^[4] which was later presented as fact by Philip Meggs and Rob Carter.^[5] It was named in honor of a prolific American printer, Benjamin Franklin. The faces were issued over a period of ten years, all of which were designed by Benton and issued by A.T.F.^[6]

Franklin Gothic (1902)
Franklin Gothic Condensed + Extra Condensed (1906)
Franklin Gothic Italic (1910)
Franklin Gothic Condensed Shaded (1912)

Many years later, the foundry again expanded the line, adding two more variants:

Franklin Gothic Wide (1952) designed by John L. “Bud” Renshaw
Franklin Gothic Condensed Italic (1967) designed by Whedon Davis

It can be distinguished from other sans serif typefaces by its more traditional double-storey a and especially g (double-storey gs, common in serif fonts, are rare in sans-serif fonts following German models, but were quite common in American and British designs of the period), the tail of the Q and the ear of the g. The tail of the Q curls down from the center of the letterform.

Hot metal copies[edit]

Barnhart Brothers & Spindler copied the face as Gothic #1, while both Linotype and Intertype, called their copies Gothic #16. Monotype’s copy kept the name Franklin Gothic, but because of the demands of mechanical composition, their version was modified to fit a standard arrangement. The Ludlow version was known as Square Gothic Heavy.^[7]

Cold type copies[edit]

Due to the post-war popularity of Gothic faces, most producers of cold type offered their own versions of Franklin Gothic. These included:^[8]

Franklin Gothic — Alphatype, Autologic, Berthold, Dymo, Star/Photon, Mergenthaler, MGD Graphic Systems, Varityper
Franklin — Compugraphic
Pittsburgh — Graphic Systems Inc.

Digital copies[edit]

Digital copies have been made by Adobe, International Typeface Corporation, Monotype Imaging, and URW. Victor Caruso drew a multi-weight family for the International Typeface Corporation (ITC) in 1979 and in 1991, ITC commissioned the Font Bureau in Boston to create condensed, compressed and extra compressed versions of ITC Franklin Gothic. Bitstream’s version is called Gothic 744.Microsoft Windows has distributed 'Franklin Gothic Medium,' one of ITC's variants of the font, in all copies since at least Windows 95.

While ITC Franklin Gothic is the most common release, it has been criticised for modifying the structure of the family considerably. Calligrapher and design historian Paul Shaw argued that it was a failure for 'mucking about with the distinctive Franklin Gothic g. In ITC Franklin Gothic...the ear on the g keeps popping up like a schoolchild overly eager to answer a question.'^[9]

An open source interpretation of Franklin Gothic has been made by Impalari Type as Libre Franklin. Libre Franklin is available on Google Fonts .

Alternate Gothic[edit]

Alternate Gothic Nos. 1,2,3
Category	Sans-serif
Classification	Grotesque
Designer(s)	Morris Fuller Benton
Foundry	American Type Founders
Date released	1903
Re-issuing foundries	Monotype
Design based on	Franklin Gothic
Also known as	Gothic Condensed (Linotype + Intertype + Ludlow)

Alternate Gothic was designed by M.F. Benton for A.T.F. in 1903. It is essentially a moderately bold condensed version of Franklin Gothic, made in three numbered widths. No.1 is the most condensed, 3 the least.

Hot metal copies[edit]

This face was copied by Monotype under the same name, #1 by Ludlow, Linotype and Intertype as Gothic Condensed. Ludlow’s Trade Gothic Condensed is very similar as well. Two variants were made:

Alternate Gothic Modernized (1927, Monotype), added thirteen alternate characters drawn by Sol Hess.
Condensed Gothic Outline (1953, Ludlow), is essentially an outline of Alternate Gothic #2.^[10]

Cold type copies[edit]

Alternate Gothic was copied by Compugraphic as Alpin Gothic.^[11]

Digital copies[edit]

Digital copies have been made by URW, Elsner+Flake, and Monotype as CG Alternate Gothic #3.

Micah Rich and several contributors of The League of Moveable Type have made a popular OFL-licensed version of Alternate Gothic #1, League Gothic.^[12]

Open source versions[edit]

League Gothic[edit]

League Gothic is a condensed sans-serif typeface released by The League of Moveable Type. The design of League Gothic was based on Alternate Gothic, a typeface originally designed by Morris Fuller Benton in 1903. Both No. 1 and No. 2 are available, each in a single semi-bold weight.^[12]

Oswald[edit]

Oswald,

Franklin For Mac