In 1903, Morris Fuller Benton grew concerned that the sans serif offerings from American Type Founders (ATF) were not keeping pace with the wealth of serif faces provided by other type foundries. As a result, he began work on three san serif designs: Alternate Gothic, Franklin Gothic and News Gothic. The first weights of the latter were released as fonts of hand-set metal type in the early years of the last century. Although considered a typographic standard by the late 1990s, Tobias Frere-Jones and Cyrus Highsmith began reviewing Fuller's original drawings for News Gothic and began a design program to revive the design for digital typography. Together with the help of the Font Bureau studio, they expanded their redesign into Benton™ Sans typeface family.
Designed to improve the reach of the original, Benton Sans features matched weights, widths and performance well beyond the limits of Benton's original design. This solid, uncomplicated typef amily is well suited for use in newspapers and magazines for headlines and in advertisements. Spread over 128 individual fonts, Benton Sans includes a full battery of weights from extra light through black with corresponding italic designs, small caps and small cap italics. Equivalent suites of condensed, compressed and extra compressed weights round out this font super family.