A set of three condensed sanserifs prepared for ATF as text and titling by Morris Fuller Benton in 1903 and popular for the next half century.

More…

The standard American sanserif of the first two thirds of the twentieth century, prepared for ATF by Morris Fuller Benton in 1908 under the name News Gothic, with a matching lightface known as Lightline Gothic. Linotype’s Trade Gothic follows News Gothic except for its widely-spaced straight-sided boldface based on ATF Alternate Gothic No.3. Linotype matches News Gothic Bold, a boldface version that originated at Intertype, with Trade Gothic Bold No.2. Ludlow Record Gothic follows News Gothic more loosely.

More…

MVB Solano Gothic Bold was originally designed as a display face for the City of Albany, California, located on the San Francisco Bay facing the Golden Gate Bridge and bordering the the Berkeley hills. Named for the City’s main street, the typeface needed to work on signage in proximity to older buildings, in contemporary settings, and for general print and web use. Rather than creating a neutered design to cover all bases, Mark van Bronkhorst chose to develop a simple, strong, condensed face that would offer flexibility of style by providing both retro and neutral forms.

More…

Sweet Gothic is a 2009 addition to the Sweet Collection of engraved lettering styles from the 20th Century. 

More…

Sheridan Gothic, also known as Grant Antique, is a quaint design produced in the late nineteenth century.

More…

Distinctively Art Nouveau with a touch of Arts & Crafts, Quaint Gothic is a typographic gem from the late nineteenth century. Also known as Desdemona, this undulating and organic typeface is a versatile and refreshing alternative to many of the font designs on the market today. Quaint Gothic comes complete with an alternate set of caps and a new set of lowercase characters. And for your convenience, a nifty set of small caps and small figures are included in this version. You may also want to access the word-on-a-wave logotypes like “to” and “and” located in the special character slots. They’re great for constructing provocative headlines and titles.

More…

Driver Gothic is based on the typeface used for Ontario license plates. Although unique among Canadian provincial license plates, this face is very similar to, if not outright identical with, the face used on car plates in 22 American states: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia.

More…

Ink Gothic is a contemporary slab serif with a split personality - a mix of heavy industrial with light typographic twists. Unique letterforms evolve the typeface into a class all its own.

More…

This design is one of the true gems to come out of the 1930s typeface era. Even though the face was originally designed to counter the invasion of European sans-serifs, it remains faithful to the principles found in its creator’s poster work.

More…

Press Gothic is a revival of Aldo Novarese’s Metropol typeface, released by Nebiolo in 1967 as a competitor to Stephenson Blake’s Impact (designed by Goeffrey Lee). Though Metropol enjoyed a few short months of popularity and use in Italy, Germany and France, Impact won the technological outlasting battle by moving on to film type then to computer outlines bundled with mainstream software, while Metropol never made it past the metal state until now. Too bad really, since this is one of the few faces that could have played well with all the horrendous stretch'n'squeezing of the 1970s.

More…

Tourist Gothic is a Lanston Monotype adaptation of Modern Condensed Gothic (a design from the late 1800s.) Rounded alternate caps were designed by Sol Hess in 1928. The alternate version is offered as LTC Tourist Gothic Alt. Tourist Gothic Pro combines both variations and includes a full Central European character set and several other OpenType features.

More…

Sweet Gothic Serif is a 2009 addition to the Sweet Collection of engraved lettering styles from the 20th Century. It is a serif variant of Sweet Gothic.

More…

This is the revival, repair and expansion of Thomas Hollingworth’s Informal Gothic, one of the winners in VGC’s National Typeface Design competition in 1965.

More…

The incisive appearance of the economical Herald Gothic headline is given by the bevelled corners to the characters, a practice common in the eighteen-seventies for news heads.

More…

Composed of two typefaces, Regular and Fat, Metro Gothic is a modern rendition of Eurostile letterforms. MG’s wide unicase characters were designed on a geometric grid while incorporating only two polygonal forms: the rectangle and quarter circle. The actual appearance of the characters aside from their metrics lends its influence to Art Deco, Bauhaus and Seventies design standards.

More…

Advertisers Gothic is bold and brash, like the city it comes from, Chicago. It was designed by the accomplished German-American matrix engraver, Robert Wiebking, for the Western Type Foundry in 1917. As its name suggests, it was designed for commercial headliner work, much as Publicity Gothic by Sidney Gaunt for BB&S the year before. See our Publicity Headline.

More…

This typeface appears to be straight out of a science fiction movie thriller.

More…

Originally designed as a bitmap font in 1986, and loosely based on Alternate Gothic, Raster Gothic Condensed is a series of outline fonts that retain the aliased look of a bitmap font. The original was retooled for better consistency across sizes, and expanded to include two more sizes and bold for all sizes. Small caps can be made by using caps from the next size down. Perfect for on-screen use, including Flash animations, web graphics, or any time anti-aliasing is not desired.

More…

Jazz Gothic is a digitization and expansion of an early 1970s film type from Franklin Photolettering called Pinto Flare.

More…

For Monumental Gothic, we delved into the archives and found some old rubbings and photos of monumental brasses from British tombs of the 12th and 13th centuries.

More…

New Lincoln Gothic is an elegant sanserif, generous in width and x-height. There are twelve weights ranging from Hairline to UltraBold and an italic for each weight. At the stroke ends are gentle flares, and some of the round characters possess an interesting and distinctive asymmetry. The character set supports Central Europe, and there are three figure sets, extended fractions, superior and inferior numbers, and a few alternates, all accessible via OpenType features.

More…

An antique letterpress typeface digitally recreated with various grunge variations for a versatile font family.

More…

As seen on Typophile.com, DTD Silvertone Woodtype had its roots in capitals and figures from a specimen of Ludlow 6-EC Gothic Extra Condensed woodtype. Thometz interpreted and expanded on the set, adding an original lower case and a set of alternates.

More…

Blackball is an attractive blackletter font with ball terminals. Yes, it did take a while to think up the name!

More…

Created in 2009 by V.H. Fleisher, Monod is a geometric sans serif typeface.

More…

Created in 2009 by V.H. Fleisher, Monod Brun is a geometric sans serif typeface.

More…

Helvetica’s 50-year anniversary celebrations in 2007 were overwhelming and contagious. We saw the movie. Twice. We bought the shirts and the buttons. We dug out the homage books and re-read the hate articles. We mourned the fading non-color of an old black shirt proudly exclaiming that “HELVETICA IS NOT AN ADOBE FONT”. We took part in long conversations discussing the merits of the Swiss classic, that most sacred of typographic dreamboats, outlasting its builder and tenants to go on alone and saturate the world with the fundamental truth of its perfect logarithm. We swooned again over its subtleties (“Ah, that mermaid of an R!”). We rehashed decades-old debates about “Hakzidenz,” “improvement in mind” and “less is more.” We dutifully cursed every single one of Helvetica’s knockoffs. We breathed deeply and closed our eyes on perfect Shakti Gawain-style visualizations of David Carson hack'n'slashing Arial — using a Swiss Army knife, no less — with all the infernal post-brutality of his creative disturbance and disturbed creativity. We then sailed without hesitation into the absurdities of analyzing Helvetica’s role in globalization and upcoming world blandness (China beware! Helvetica will invade you as silently and transparently as a sheet of rice paper!). And at the end of a perfect celebratory day, we positively affirmed √ la Shakti, and solemnly whispered the energy of our affirmation unto the universal mind: “We appreciate Helvetica for getting us this far. We are now ready for release and await the arrival of the next head snatcher.”

More…

An inline gothic display font based in mid-twentieth century showcard and signpainting styles. All caps with some alternates in lower case keyboard positions.

More…

An inline gothic display font based in mid-twentieth century showcard and signpainting styles. All caps with some alternates in lower case keyboard positions.

More…

An inline gothic display font based in mid-twentieth century showcard and signpainting styles. All caps with some alternates in lower case keyboard positions.

More…

This is yet another Willard T. Sniffin deco-inspired original. Created for the American Type Foundry, Hollywood Deco remains a classic that is still as contemporary today as when it first appeared in 1932.

More…

Newcomen is a highly versatile titling face that includes 87 OpenType alternates and 38 ligatures. Newcomen titling, in its default form, evokes the Victorian era and is named for the British inventor of a steam engine for pumping water.

More…

Taking the concept of a monoline version of Shàngó — as exemplified in Shàngó Gothic — to its extreme, resulted in the latest addition to the popular Shàngó family of typefaces: Shango Sans.

More…

Goudy Sans Bold was originally designed by Fredric Goudy in 1922 as a less formal “gothic” and finished in 1929. The light was designed in 1930 and the Light Italic in 1931.

More…

A Roman-Gothic hybrid with an antique feel, based on pen-drawn forms. The stylishness of individual letters makes it appealing even for large-scale signage, where evoking heritage is important.

More…

By no means a cheap spinoff of a great original, the Copper Penny family is a completely revamped tribute to Frederic W. Goudy’s venerable Copperplate Gothic. After much attention and care, this freshened-up face takes a century-overdue leap forward, anxious to take on the needs of an ever-changing design world. Even as it serves a dual role in Computer Aided Signmaking (CAS) and Desktop Publishing (DTP), this family is also brimming with an extensive range of alternates, plus a set of small uppercase characters for that traditional look, and lastly and most welcome, a viable lowercase that pays clear homage to its classic roots.

More…

P22 Canterbury is a late Medieval Gothic font with a rough edge.

More…

Samosata NF is based on Lucian Bernhard’s eponymous Gothic, but it employs all of the alternate characters seldom seen today. The result is an elegant, classical typeface with subtle Art Deco shadings.

More…

Dragons, magic, the Middle Ages, and all that is gothic was the inspiration for this design. It was one of ten winners in The 1988 Chartpak Typeface Design Competition and is now available in two styles with additional characters, alternates and dingbats. Blackstone was originally designed with only upper case letters so try using different combinations of all caps.

More…

One of the Modulus series of interchangeable type styles built around a common framework. A general purpose design with squared forms and a simplified finish, Primex delivers excellent clarity on-screen and is doubly effective in print. The key features are its simple utility and unremarkable appearance. Where most fonts exert their individuality, Primex prefers to remain anonymous. The compact proportions closely follow Alternate Gothic*, one of the 20th century’s most ubiquitous and versatile types. In style Primex is patterned after countless squared grotesks and linears; industrial in essence with contemporary twists, a robust work-a-day typeface totally subservient to the message. Primex is suitable for anything from text to sub-headings, incidental text, main headings, logos, display, signage and poster work, and extends this range with high readability on-screen thanks to its simple right-angled construction. A companion oblique font is included with the base font at no cost.

• one weight fits all
• extra-condensed for maximum cramability
• high performance in low resolution media

More…

In 1939 the Stephenson Blake Company bought a very popular script called Undine Ronde and began marketing under the name Amanda Ronde. Although Undine/Amanda was quite popular and can be seen in many advertisements from the 1930s and 1940s, there seems to be no surviving record stating the original foundry or designer.

More…

I have always been frustrated when looking for a bold condensed face. The choices were the usual? Helvetica Bold Condensed, Univers Bold Condensed or Alternate Gothic #2... all rather dated. I was looking for a really unique, clean, uncluttered sans serif face, so I decided to design one. I have since adapted it to many logo designs. So, in my terms and conditions, I decided to permit the modification of the letter forms for logos and monograms, but logos and monograms only, not the typeface in normal usage.

More…

Lionheart is the digitization and expansion of Saladin, a neo-gothic typeface designed by Friedrich Poppl, long after he established himself as one of the greatest German designers of all time with some of the most “ausgezeichnet” scripts and text faces to ever come out of Europe. This typeface, though lesser-known among Poppl’s other masterpieces, was one of the first in its genre to abandon blackletter influence and attempt letter variations based strictly on Roman alphabet shapes. Poppl’s idea spawned a whole generation of neo-gothics that can now be found on many a movie poster or book cover where the design must hint at secrets and dark sides.

More…

In June of 2004, Canada Type released Crucifix, a condensed three-tiers typeface that tried to bridge the gap between traditional blackletter forms and the traditional European gothics. The main goal of Crucifix was to have as many as 4 different variations on each letter form, so the original release consisted of three fonts: a main font with a standard character set, a small caps set, and a unicase variation.

More…

Publicity Headline is an allcaps version of Sidney Gaunt’s advertising typeface, Publicity Gothic. Its heavy weight and robust strength allows it to be used against complex backgrounds or reversed out on dark backgrounds without getting lost. It also has a warm, friendly feeling for the conventional headlines indicated by the name.

More…

Grand Slam is based on an old cardwriting style known as Poster Gothic. This dynamic letterstyle was used in the heyday of the Hollywood movie poster because of its powerful and snappy appeal.

More…

Telepod One is based on an old Speedball lettering style and has a very retro look and feel. Figures and lowercase letters have been added to the original condensed round gothic design. Telepod Two is its alternate. It not only contains additional cap alternates but a very useful set of small cap letters and old style figures. Telepod Two has a slightly different retro-futuristic feel and can easily stand by itself or provide interesting variations to Telepod One.

More…

Matthew Carter designed Bell Centennial in 1978 specifically for AT&T Corporation (the name honors their 100th anniversary) to use in telephone books. Carter developed it to have high legibility at small sizes, and for composition on high-speed, cathode-ray-tube composing machines. (Bell Gothic, the typeface originally designed for telephone books in 1937 and for composition on the hot metal Linotype machines, was no longer usable in the new technology.) Bell Centennial is a sturdy, condensed sans-serif design that achieves great economy of space while being highly legible.

More…

Here’s an intriguing mixture of 1930s deco and modern tech fashion.

More…

Almost a half of a millennium after being mistaken for the original 4th century Gothic alphabet and falsely labeled “barbaric” by the European Renaissance, the blackletter alphabet was still flourishing exclusively in early 20th century Germany, not only as an ode to Gutenberg and the country’s rich printing history, but also as a continuous evolution, taking on new shapes and textures influenced by almost every other form of alphabet available. Blackletter would continue to go strong in Germany until just before the second World War, when it died a political death at the height of its hybridization. For almost 50 years after the war, blackletter was very rarely used in a prominent manner, but it continued to be seen sparely in a variety of settings, almost as a subliminal reminder of western civilization’s first printed letters; on certificates and official documents of all kinds, religious publications, holiday cards and posters, to name a few. In the early 21st century, blackletter type has been appearing sporadically on visible media, but as of late 2005, it is not known how long the renewed interest will last, or even whether or not it will catch on at all.

More…

Rhodaelian Retour expands the original Rhodaelian into a powerful, feature-packed display typography system.

More…

Alt-Gotisch Verzierte is a typeface of decorative initials that is Victorian in style and bears a close family resemblance to the many ornamental tuscans cut throughout the nineteenth century by British foundries. Instead of the bifurcated terminals of the archetypical tuscan (see Figgins Tuscan by HiH or Stereopticon by Dan X. Solo), these letters display what Nicolete Gray might call a “wedge and bite” design -- as if they started with the wedge serif of a latin form and someone came along and took a perfectly round bite out of the wedge. We need not dwell on the lack of teeth marks. The calligraphic curls and flourishes are often graceful, sometimes a bit contrived, but always complex. There is a busyness that marks the style of the period. If you ever see an old photograph of a well-appointed Victorian parlor, you will recognize that same quality of busyness. Overdone is a word that frequently comes to mind.

More…

Alternate Gothic was designed by Morris Fuller Benton for American Typefounders Company in 1903.

More…

Based on Futura, Avant Garde Gothic derives from Herb Lubalin’s and Tom Carnase’s logotype and display lettering for Avant Garde magazine. It was ITC’s first text series, and firmly established the ITC formula for closely fitted designs large in x-height. Arched forms are more nearly circular than in Futura, a feature that makes for uneven textures in the smaller sizes.

More…

Franklin Gothic was designed by Morris Fuller Benton for the American Type Founders Company in 1903-1912. Early types without serifs were known by the misnomer “gothic” in America (“grotesque” in Britain and “grotesk” in Germany).

More…