News Gothic

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News Gothic
Typeface News Gothic
Category 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. News Gothic served as a model for the typeface Benton Sans.

Benton's sans-serif faces follow the neo-grotesque model. Distinct characters are the two-story lowercase a, the two-story lowercase g, and a blunt terminus at the apex of the lowercase t. The tail of the uppercase Q is distinct for being located completely outside the bowl. The character set is 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.

The use of the term "Gothic" is an early twentieth century misnomer for sans-serifs found mostly in the United States and Canada. In the UK the term Gothic is occasionally used but more often the term "grotesque" is used for sans-serifs. In Germany the term "grotesk" is used.

[edit] Trivia

  • The bold variant of News Gothic is used in the logo for the Swedish pop group ABBA, a logo conceived in 1976 by Rune Söderqvist. It should also be noted that the scanning used for the logo comes from Adobe, not Monotype. [1] The font is/was also used in promotional materials for the group, as well as CD and DVD liner notes.
  • News Gothic Bold was used in the Star Wars opening crawl for the main body of the text.
  • A customized version of News Gothic was used for the Mother (video game) logo.

[edit] Bibliography

  • Baines, Phil, Hastam, Andrew. Type and Typography. Watson-Guptill Publications: 2005. ISBN 0-8230-5528-0.
  • Blackwell, Lewis. 20th Century Type. Yale University Press: 2004. ISBN 0-300-10073-6.
  • Fiedl, Frederich, Nicholas Ott and Bernard Stein. Typography: An Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques Through History. Black Dog & Leventhal: 1998. ISBN 1-57912-023-7.
  • Jaspert, W. Pincus, W. Turner Berry and A.F. Johnson. The Encyclopædia of Type Faces. Blandford Press Lts.: 1953, 1983. ISBN 0-7137-1347-X.
  • Macmillan, Neil. An A–Z of Type Designers. Yale University Press: 2006. ISBN 0-300-11151-7.
  • Meggs, Phillip B. Revival of the Fittest. RC Publications, Inc: 2002. ISBN 1-883915-08-2.
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