Long considered among the purest interpretations of standard 19th century type style, the ITC Franklin Gothic™ font is an extra-bold sans serif typeface family designed by Victor Caruso in 1980 based on the original Franklin Gothic fonts originally desiged by Morris Fuller Benton in 1902 for the American Type Founders (ATF) company. Familiar to anyone who reads newspapers or magazines, Franklin Gothic has been widely used in everything from news headlines to book covers and billboards for over a century. ITC Franklin Gothic is easily distinguished by its traditional double-story “g” and “a” and the distinctive tail on the “q” and ear of the “g”. In 2004 a new and improved family was developed by ITC and the Font Bureau’s David Berlow and introduced as ITC Franklin™.
Named after inventor and printer Benjamin Franklin, Franklin Gothic was created in 1902 by Morris Fuller Benton. Between 1902 and 1912 American Type Founders issued the first five faces: Franklin Gothic regular, condensed, extra condensed, italic and condensed shaded.
With the emergence of serif font popularity, Franklin Gothic largely fell out of favor until in 1952 when ATF introduced the Franklin Gothic Wide font, designed by John L. “Bud” Renshaw. Within a few more years they again added a new face with the Franklin Gothic Condensed Italic font by Whedan Davis. But the heyday for Franklin Gothic’s older gothic style was being eclipsed by the newer more sleek style of fonts like the Univers® and Helvetica® typeface families.
In the early 1980s International Typeface Corporation® began developing new versions of old metal typefaces and commissioned Victor Caruso under an ATF license to create four new weights of the font for the roman and italic faces: book, medium, demi and heavy and issued them in two designs: display and text. ITC continued to develop the family in various weights and styles, and produced versions in PostScript Type 1, TrueType and OpenType formats.
David Below of the Font Bureau approached ITC and began a collaboration in 2004 to rework Franklin Gothic for the digital age. The first phase of the redesign was completed in 2008. This new family was simply called ITC Franklin and has grown into a robust set of 48 different fonts!
ITC Franklin Gothic
Weights of ITC Franklin GothicBecause of its long popularity, you can find Franklin Gothic fonts in just about any type of media. In the world of Fine Art, it is the official typeface of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and is often the font of choice for many of Lawrence Weiner’s art works.
In the film industry it was used for the title on the film Rocky, for the subtitles in all of the Star Wars films, and in promotional material for Batman: The Dark Knight. Films sister media television also uses it widely including as the resident typeface for the PBS series The Electric Company, as intertitles for the Nickelodeon Show, and as logos for TNT, ESPN, Showtime and CBS Sports. You can also find the font on the cover of music albums from as disparate performers as Lady Gaga and Van Morrison.