News Gothic
 | |
| 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.
News Gothic is available in standard, condensed, and extra condensed widths, each with a matching bold and italic. The standard width typeface is available in light, standard, demi, and bold weights, each with a matching italic. The condensed and extra condensed widths are ideal for use in tables and parts lists.
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. Adobe, Monotype, Linotype, Bitstream and The Font Bureau all have their own versions.
'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.
News Gothic No. 2
No. 2 is an enhanced version of News Gothic produced by the D. Stempel AG type foundry in 1984. It adds more weights to the News Gothic family than were available in other versions.
The OpenType version of the No. 2 family comes in 6 weights with complementary italic fonts, supports ISO Adobe 2, Adobe CE, Latin Extended character sets.
Variants
Benton Sans is an expanded font family from the Font Bureau based on News Gothic.
The Bitstream version of News Gothic was extended with Cyrillic glyphs in 2005 and Greek glyphs in 2009 by Dmitry Kirsanov for ParaType.[1]
Adobe Source Sans Pro is based on the ATF version of News Gothic from their 1923 type specimen catalog. Released in 2012 as Adobe's first open source font under the SIL Open Font License.[2]
News Cycle is an open-source variant by Nathan Willis based on 1908 specimens of News Gothic typeface from ATF extended with full Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic glyphs. It is an open source typeface licensed under the SIL Open Font License.[3][4]
Heidelberg Gothic, a variant of News Gothic, is the house font of the Heidelberg Gruppe.[5]
JCP News Gothic commissioned by JC Penney consists of two new weights coordinated with Monotype News Gothic, and is designed for use in advertising campaigns.[6]
Usages
- The identity for the Brooklyn Academy of Music, designed by Michael Bierut, heavily uses News Gothic.
- The font on black Otis elevator pushbuttons (manufactured from the 1920s through the 1960s) and the rounded Otis Lexan touch-sensitive buttons (manufactured from the 1960s through the 1980s) primarily uses News Gothic, while the font on the squared Otis Lexan touch-sensitive buttons (manufactured from the 1960s through the 1980s) uses News Gothic Demi Bold.
- The text in figures of the scientific general Nature Magazine is set in News Gothic.
- 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.[7] The font is/was also used in promotional materials for the group, as well as CD and DVD liner notes.
- News Gothic Bold is also used in the artwork for The Fame Monster by Lady Gaga, possibly in a deliberate stylistic homage to ABBA.
- The numbers on split-flap displays on most 1970s Bob Stewart Productions game shows were News Gothic Bold.
- News Gothic Bold was used in Saul Bass' opening title sequence for Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 thriller, Psycho.
- News Gothic Bold was used in the Star Wars opening crawl for the main body of the text.
- The version of News Gothic that was on IBM typesetters was used widely by Fluxus artists such as George Maciunas (in his Fluxpublications) and George Brecht (in his event scores).[8][9]
- The logo adopted by Polaroid Corporation in the late 1950s, designed by Paul Giambarba, is set in News Gothic, as was much of the type on the company's packaging and documentation up until the 1980s.
- The Style Network uses the News Gothic typeface in its on-air identity along with a bold weight of the Didot typeface.
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.
References
- ↑ "News Gothic Font". Paratype. Retrieved 30 September 2014.
- ↑ "Source Sans Pro: Adobe's first open source type family". TypeKit. Retrieved 30 September 2014.
- ↑ Willis, Nathan. "News Cycle font family". Launchpad. Retrieved 30 September 2014.
- ↑ "News Cycle". Open Font Library. Retrieved 9 December 2014.
- ↑ Devroye, Luc. "Heidelberg Gothic and Antiqua". Luc Devroye. Retrieved 30 September 2014.
- ↑ "JCP News Gothic". Terminal Design. Retrieved 30 September 2014.
- ↑ hem.bredband.net/b138451/logo/
- ↑ www.amazon-noir.com/BOOKS/6_%20The_Fluxus_Reader_Ken_Friedman.pdf
- ↑ ubu.clc.wvu.edu/historical/gb/index.html
External links
- News Gothic Font Family – by Morris Fuller Benton
- News Gothic No. 2 Font Family – by Morris Fuller Benton