Franklin Gothic
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| font | Franklin Gothic |
| category | Sans serif |
| Font designer | Morris Fuller Benton |
| Type foundry | American Type Founders |
| Creation | 1904 |
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Franklin Gothic is a font family . The Sans serif Linear-Antiqua in 1904 by the American engineer and typeface designer Morris Fuller Benton for ATF, the American Type Founders , designed and in subsequent years through additional typefaces removed for font family.
It is said again and again that Benton was inspired by German sans serifs such as Berthold's Akzidenz-Grotesk and the Reform-Grotesk by D. Stempel AG. However, this has not been proven and seems rather unlikely, at least in the case of the fonts mentioned, since the Reform-Grotesk, for example, did not come onto the market until the same year, 1904.
Franklin Gothic belongs to the group of "American grotesques", which, like the commercial grotesques in Western Europe, is a further development of the original grotesque of the 19th century. In the USA, the font enjoys a similar status as the Helvetica or the Univers in German-speaking countries.
The origin of the name is not clear. Rumor has it that Franklin goes back to the US statesman and inventor Benjamin Franklin , who at the age of 22 was the first in his branch to produce lead letters for his printing company. In the US, Gothic is the general term used for sans serif fonts.
The Franklin Gothic is still used in advertising to this day. For example, the condensed version has been part of the ADAC's corporate design for decades and is used there for the club's logo and name (see picture).
