Daniel Berkeley Updike seems to have stimulated the architect Bertram G. Goodhue to design the prototype in 1896 for Ingalls Kimball at the Cheltenham Press. Six years later Morris Fuller Benton at ATF developed it into the design and then the series that we know today. “Owing to certain eccentricities of form,” writes Updike, “it cannot be read comfortably for any length of time.” But he concludes: “It is, however, an exceedingly handsome letter for ephemeral printing.” Mergenthaler bought composing machine rights to the original design c. 1896, but bought the Benton design in 1904.

The purpose of this monospace font is to display braille in an original although rather steganographic way. Its glyphs are built from a flat hexagon which can be read as 3 rows of 2 vertices (i.e. regular braille glyph grid). The initial design is illustrated by glyphs 'ç' (no dot) and 'û' (6 dots) as shown by poster 5. Glyphs are connected to each other, thus 6 connections for each hexagon (2 on left/right and 4 on top/bottom). In the final design many diagonal segments of the hexagon were removed for esthetical reason. Text is displayed not as a honeycomb but as a lattice instead which mixes hexagons, squares and "irregular convex octagons" (mostly unclosed), the design favored squares over octagons. The whole slightly resembling a PCB. Text can be framed with 3 sets of Frame glyphs (as shown in Poster 4): Octagonal: { €, °, £, µ, §, ¥, ~, ¢ } which can be mixed with Rectangular High Rectangular Low: { è, é, ê, ï, î, à, â, ä } Rectangular High: { Â, ù, Ä, Ê, Ë, ô, õ, ë } which can be mixed with Octagonal NB: When using Frame glyphs, it is advised to show Pilcrow (¶) and Non Breaking Space, which are replaced by empty shapes (e.g. in Microsoft Word, use CTRL+8 or use [¶] button in the ribbon).

In 1928, the application of pure geometric form to sanserifs and slabserifs was in full swing. Morris Fuller Benton applied geometry to the Modern letterform to arrive at Parisian and Broadway for ATF.

In 1928, the application of pure geometric form to sanserifs and slabserifs was in full swing. Morris Fuller Benton applied geometry to the Modern letterform to arrive at Parisian and Broadway for ATF.

The rather wide, caps-only Monotype Engravers family imitates scripts that evolved from copperplate and steel plate engravers hands of the nineteenth century, which were a quite expressive medium! Monotype Engravers' letters show a strong contrast between thick and thin strokes and have sharply cut serifs. In 1899, Robert Wiebking (who worked for a number of foundries in his time) designed an all-caps typeface named Engravers Roman."" Shortly thereafter, American Type Founders, Inc. (ATF) released another successful ancestor of this design in 1902, ""Engravers Bold,"" designed by Morris Fuller Benton. Engravers Bold was also released by the Barnhart Brothes & Spinder foundry. Also made available by Lanston Monotype at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Engravers faces soon became a popular choice for letter heads, advertising and stationery.

The rather wide, caps-only Monotype Engravers family imitates scripts that evolved from copperplate and steel plate engravers hands of the nineteenth century, which were a quite expressive medium! Monotype Engravers' letters show a strong contrast between thick and thin strokes and have sharply cut serifs. In 1899, Robert Wiebking (who worked for a number of foundries in his time) designed an all-caps typeface named Engravers Roman."" Shortly thereafter, American Type Founders, Inc. (ATF) released another successful ancestor of this design in 1902, ""Engravers Bold,"" designed by Morris Fuller Benton. Engravers Bold was also released by the Barnhart Brothes & Spinder foundry. Also made available by Lanston Monotype at the beginning of the twentieth century, the Engravers faces soon became a popular choice for letter heads, advertising and stationery.

A tessellation is a shape that can be used to completely fill the plane--simple examples are isosceles triangles, squares, and hexagons. The TessieDingie fonts contain tessellation shapes that can be used to construct tessellation patterns. The repeating unit, which may contain only one of the shapes or a several of the shapes, is on one key so making patterns is trivial with these fonts. TessieDingieAbstract contains abstract shapes that tessellate. TessieDingiePictures contains shapes that resemble real world objects, such as birds, animals, tools, and vehicles. Make sure the leading is the same as font size or the rows will not line up. Tessellation patterns are eye-catching and visually appealing, which is the reason that they have long been popular in a variety of decorative situations, such as quilting.

Over the course of 50 years, the charismatic and enterprising Frederic W. Goudy designed more than 100 typefaces; he was the American master of type design in the first half of the twentieth century. Goudy Old Style, designed for American Type Founders in 1915-1916, is the best known of his designs, and forms the basis for a large family of variants. Goudy said he was initially inspired by the cap lettering on a Renaissance painting, but most of the flavor of this design reflects Goudy's own individualistic style. Recognizable Goudy-isms include the upward pointing ear of the g, the diamond-shaped dots over the i and j, and the roundish upward swelling of the horizontal strokes at the base of the E and L. The italic was completed by Goudy in 1918, and is notable for its minimal slope. Goudy Bold (1916-1919) and Goudy Extra Bold (1927) were drawn not by Goudy, but by Morris Fuller Benton, who was ATF's skillful in-house designer. Goudy Catalogue was drawn by Benton in 1919-1921 and was meant to be a medium weight of Goudy Old Style. Goudy Heavyface was designed by Goudy for Monotype in 1925, and was intended to be a rival to the successful Cooper Black. Goudy Modern was designed by Goudy in 1918; its small x-height, tall ascenders and shorter caps impart a spacious and elegant feeling. Benton designed Goudy Handtooled, the shaded version that has just a hairline of white through its bold strokes. The Goudy faces, especially the bolder weights, have long been popular for display and advertising design. They continue to pop up all over the world, and still look reassuring to our modern eyes."

Over the course of 50 years, the charismatic and enterprising Frederic W. Goudy designed more than 100 typefaces; he was the American master of type design in the first half of the twentieth century. Goudy Old Style, designed for American Type Founders in 1915-1916, is the best known of his designs, and forms the basis for a large family of variants. Goudy said he was initially inspired by the cap lettering on a Renaissance painting, but most of the flavor of this design reflects Goudy's own individualistic style. Recognizable Goudy-isms include the upward pointing ear of the g, the diamond-shaped dots over the i and j, and the roundish upward swelling of the horizontal strokes at the base of the E and L. The italic was completed by Goudy in 1918, and is notable for its minimal slope. Goudy Bold (1916-1919) and Goudy Extra Bold (1927) were drawn not by Goudy, but by Morris Fuller Benton, who was ATF's skillful in-house designer. Goudy Catalogue was drawn by Benton in 1919-1921 and was meant to be a medium weight of Goudy Old Style. Goudy Heavyface was designed by Goudy for Monotype in 1925, and was intended to be a rival to the successful Cooper Black. Goudy Modern was designed by Goudy in 1918; its small x-height, tall ascenders and shorter caps impart a spacious and elegant feeling. Benton designed Goudy Handtooled, the shaded version that has just a hairline of white through its bold strokes. The Goudy faces, especially the bolder weights, have long been popular for display and advertising design. They continue to pop up all over the world, and still look reassuring to our modern eyes."

Over the course of 50 years, the charismatic and enterprising Frederic W. Goudy designed more than 100 typefaces; he was the American master of type design in the first half of the twentieth century. Goudy Old Style, designed for American Type Founders in 1915-1916, is the best known of his designs, and forms the basis for a large family of variants. Goudy said he was initially inspired by the cap lettering on a Renaissance painting, but most of the flavor of this design reflects Goudy's own individualistic style. Recognizable Goudy-isms include the upward pointing ear of the g, the diamond-shaped dots over the i and j, and the roundish upward swelling of the horizontal strokes at the base of the E and L. The italic was completed by Goudy in 1918, and is notable for its minimal slope. Goudy Bold (1916-1919) and Goudy Extra Bold (1927) were drawn not by Goudy, but by Morris Fuller Benton, who was ATF's skillful in-house designer. Goudy Catalogue was drawn by Benton in 1919-1921 and was meant to be a medium weight of Goudy Old Style. Goudy Heavyface was designed by Goudy for Monotype in 1925, and was intended to be a rival to the successful Cooper Black. Goudy Modern was designed by Goudy in 1918; its small x-height, tall ascenders and shorter caps impart a spacious and elegant feeling. Benton designed Goudy Handtooled, the shaded version that has just a hairline of white through its bold strokes. The Goudy faces, especially the bolder weights, have long been popular for display and advertising design. They continue to pop up all over the world, and still look reassuring to our modern eyes."

Over the course of 50 years, the charismatic and enterprising Frederic W. Goudy designed more than 100 typefaces; he was the American master of type design in the first half of the twentieth century. Goudy Old Style, designed for American Type Founders in 1915-1916, is the best known of his designs, and forms the basis for a large family of variants. Goudy said he was initially inspired by the cap lettering on a Renaissance painting, but most of the flavor of this design reflects Goudy's own individualistic style. Recognizable Goudy-isms include the upward pointing ear of the g, the diamond-shaped dots over the i and j, and the roundish upward swelling of the horizontal strokes at the base of the E and L. The italic was completed by Goudy in 1918, and is notable for its minimal slope. Goudy Bold (1916-1919) and Goudy Extra Bold (1927) were drawn not by Goudy, but by Morris Fuller Benton, who was ATF's skillful in-house designer. Goudy Catalogue was drawn by Benton in 1919-1921 and was meant to be a medium weight of Goudy Old Style. Goudy Heavyface was designed by Goudy for Monotype in 1925, and was intended to be a rival to the successful Cooper Black. Goudy Modern was designed by Goudy in 1918; its small x-height, tall ascenders and shorter caps impart a spacious and elegant feeling. Benton designed Goudy Handtooled, the shaded version that has just a hairline of white through its bold strokes. The Goudy faces, especially the bolder weights, have long been popular for display and advertising design. They continue to pop up all over the world, and still look reassuring to our modern eyes."

Font with hexagonal dots for texts, names, logotypes, titles, headers, topics etc. Big sizes of this font can be used for posters, t-shirts and other surfaces. Also good for the three-dimensional inscriptions.

Auriol font was the basis for the lettering used by Hector Guimard for the entrance signs to the Paris Metro. Bitstream’s Freeform 721 with his brush stroke look, is well-suited to display settings.

Font with hexagonal dots for texts, names, logotypes, titles, headers, topics etc. Big sizes of this font can be used for posters, t-shirts and other surfaces. Also good for the three-dimensional inscriptions.

Font with hexagonal dots for texts, names, logotypes, titles, headers, topics etc. Big sizes of this font can be used for posters, t-shirts and other surfaces. Also good for the three-dimensional inscriptions.

Franklin Gothic SG is part of the Scangraphic Collection and designed 1902 by Morris Fuller Benton. Franklin Gothic is a trademark or registered trademark of Kingsley/ATF American Type Founders or its legal successors.

Clearface Gothic first appeared in 1910, designed by Morris Fuller Benton, the world-famously prolific typeface artist. In addition to Clearface Gothic, Benton also designed classics like Franklin Gothic, Century Expanded, and many other types. Clearface Gothic is a sans serif face with light forms displaying the Zeitgeist of the turn of the 20th century. Distinguishing characteristics are the open forms of the a" and "c," the arched "k," and the upward-tilting horizontal stroke of the "e." The relatively narrow typeface, with its open inner white spaces, is extremely legible even in small point sizes. There is no accompanying italic."

Phenix American was designed by M.F. Benton in 1935. The Phenix American font is a headline design with condensed sans serif characters that look good on corporate stationery and packaging as well as on magazine and brochure covers.

A set of square capitals developing from the interest in geometric forms stimulated by the Bauhaus, Bank Gothic was designed by Morris Fuller Benton for ATF in 1930, the same year that Georg Trump designed City for Berthold.

This steam era typeface, created by Gustav Schroeder in 1884, found popular use on soap box labels and tobacco tins during its initial release. Then, later, a successful and stout revival of Gustav's face, named Othello, was carried out by Morris Fuller Benton in 1934, and the typeface's appeal widened to include items such as broadside posters featuring Boris Karloff's Frankenstein. After metal gave way to film type, Gustav's creation experienced a brief fashion moment in the 1960's, but then disappeared entirely, never re-surfacing as a full digital typeface. With the release of Bathysphere, the typeface comes full circle, having been completely redrawn from scratch using Gustav's original specimens. The new extended language support establishes the typeface firmly in the modern era, while Bathysphere's refinement of subtle blunt corners restores a deep-sea grace to this iron giant.

Poxy is a black weight display font with 3 styles available. Built with particles, including circles, hexagons and stars. An Alternate Stylistic Set offers the option to make letters, numbers and symbols float away at the the top of each glyph.

Hobo font was designed in 1910 by Morris Fuller Benton for American Type Founders. This unusual Art Nouveau-inspired design contains no straight lines and no descenders. It imparts a friendliness to display work such as invitations, menus, signage, and packaging.

Modeled after a 1928-1928 design by M.F. Benton -- Broadway --, TC Broadway is ideal for show posters and signs for restaurants and boutiques. The TC Broadway font has strong contrasting strokes, and as such is only suitable for short lines.

Originally designed by Morris Fuller Benton for ATF in 1927, Sol Hess added a lower case in 1929. Hess also drew Broadway Engraved in 1928 for Lanston Monotype. Broadway has become somewhat of a classic icon as an "Art Deco" typeface.

Here's an elegant addition to Argentina NF, carefully crafted after the pattern provided by master type designer Morris Fuller Benton in 1919. Both versions of this font support the Latin 1252, Central European 1250, Turkish 1254 and Baltic 1257 codepages.

Designed with a hand-chiseled feel, Blau’s sculpted characters add a refined personality to a wide range of brand, corporate, product and service applications. Highlighting the sculpted theme, inkwell treatment variations are prevalent throughout Blau, with several key glyphs that are stenciled for increased legibility. This sturdy, typographic workhorse shines when a slightly unorthodox typographic approach is required — a prime choice for distinctive and dynamic logotype use. The Blau family is available in Light, Light Italic, Regular, Italic, Bold and Bold Italic. The name Blau was chosen to celebrate the color Blue (or Blau in German, Blaauw in Dutch, Bleu French, Blå in Norwegian, Swedish & Danish, Blua in Esperanto, Blár in Icelandic) Blue is nature’s color for water, sky, mountains and glaciers. Blue is embraced as the color of heaven and authority, denim jeans and corporate logos. Surveys in the US and Europe show that blue is the color most commonly associated with harmony, faithfulness, confidence, distance, infinity, the imagination, and cold. In US and European public opinion polls, it is the most popular color, chosen by both men and women as their favorite color. Another very popular Wilton Foundry font in the “blue” family is “Cyan” and “Cyan Neue”.

Some vintage Beacon metal door letters used for identifying addresses on home and business buildings was spotted in an online auction from England. Those few letters were the inspiration for Home Address JNL, which is available in both regular and oblique versions.

Eagle Bold was designed by M.F. Benton in 1933. It is a heavy geometric Sans Serif font with unusual spurs on Capital G and Q. An all-Capitals design, the Eagle Bold font is perfect for magazine and book covers, posters and packaging.

Designed at American Type Founders in 1930-33 by Morris F. Benton. An all-capital sans serif featuring squared-off letters with rounded corners. For use in advertising and display typography. Cyrillic version was created at ParaType by Tagir Safayev in 1997.

Brossard is a slab serif face redolent of French atmosphere and the design ethos of the 1920s. Use it for headines and posters that need that distinctive élan or where a Continental feel is called for. Regular and outline faces are offered.

Latimer is one of a series exploring a fusion of Roman and Gothic forms. Characteristics of each genre can be seen: the fluid tapering serifs and rounded shapes of the Roman form, contrasted with the angular diamond and hexagonal shapes of Gothic.

ATF Franklin Gothic® A new take on an old favorite Franklin Gothic has been the quintessential American sans for more than a century. Designed by Morris Fuller Benton and released in 1905 by American Type Founders, Franklin Gothic quickly stood out in the crowded field of sans-serif types, gaining an enduring popularity. Benton’s original design was a display face in a single weight. It had a bold, direct solidity, yet conveyed plenty of character. A modern typeface in the tradition of 19th-century grotesques, Franklin Gothic was drawn with a distinctive contrast in stroke weight, giving it a unique personality among the more mono-linear appearance of later geometric and neo-grotesque sans-serif types. Franklin Gothic has been interpreted into a series of weights before, most notably with ITC Franklin Gothic. But as the original type was just a bold display face (later accompanied by a few similarly bold widths and italics), how Benton’s design is expanded to multiple weights and styles as a digital type family can vary significantly. Benton designed several gothic faces that harmonize with one another, including Franklin Gothic, News Gothic, and Monotone Gothic, that can serve as models for new interpretations of his work. With ATF Franklin Gothic, Mark van Bronkhorst looked to Benton’s Monotone Gothic—originally a single typeface in a regular weight, and similar to Franklin Gothic in its forms—as the basis for lighter styles. ATF Franklin Gothic may appear familiar given its heritage, but is a new design offering a fresh take on Benton’s work. The text weights are wider and more open than some previous Franklin Gothic interpretations, and as a result are quite legible as text, at very small sizes, and on screen. ATF Franklin Gothic maintains the warmth and the spirit of a Benton classic while offering a suite of fonts tuned precisely for contemporary appeal and utility. The 18-font family offers nine weights with true italics, a Latin-extended character set, and a suite of OpenType features. Download the PDF specimen for ATF Franklin Gothic.

Based on Bank Gothic designed by Morris Fuller Benton in the 30th, Bank Sans Caps from Elsner+Flake offers a wide variety of weights from Light to Bold with Compressed, Semi Condensed and Condensed widths. All weights are also available with Cyrillic character sets.

Nice typographic experiment consisting of the progressive "bodonization" I have summarized in two steps, by a letter drawn with the same concentration and intensity with which Paris Hilton reading a book, to get something like the sketches that Mr. Gianbattista used to Wrap the sandwich.

Italian Old Style™ was designed by Frederic W. Goudy for the Lanston Monotype Company in the USA. Goudy was asked by Monotype to copy Cloister Oldstyle, a successful font that belonged to a competing foundry (it was designed by Morris Fuller Benton, see Cloister Open Face). Goudy refused on grounds of ethics, and instead talked Monotype into producing a new face. This he based freely on fifteenth century Venetian types, which were the same historical models used by Benton for Cloister and later by Bruce Rogers for Centaur. Goudy's result was Italian Old Style, released by Monotype in 1924, and considered by many to be one of Goudy's best fonts for book typography."

Alternate Gothic was designed by Morris Fuller Benton for American Typefounders Company in 1903. All three weights of Alternate Gothic are bold and narrow. In fact, this face is essentially a condensed version of Benton’s other well-known sans serif types, Franklin Gothic and News Gothic. In the early twentieth century, the modern concept of type “families” had not yet been formed — and though Benton designed these sans serifs to harmonize with each other, the foundry gave them different names. Robust, dark, and coolly competent, Alternate Gothic is a good choice when strong typographic statements must fit into tight spaces. As a modern usage, it is currently the font of YouTube’s homepage logo.

Clearface Gothic first appeared in 1910, designed by Morris Fuller Benton, the world-famously prolific typeface artist. In addition to Clearface Gothic, Benton also designed classics like Franklin Gothic, Century Expanded, and many other types. Clearface Gothic is a sans serif face with light forms displaying the Zeitgeist of the turn of the 20th century. Distinguishing characteristics are the open forms of the a" and "c," the arched "k," and the upward-tilting horizontal stroke of the "e." The relatively narrow typeface, with its open inner white spaces, is extremely legible even in small point sizes. There is no accompanying italic. This digital version of Clearface Gothic was made in 1984 by the Linotype Design Studio."

A revival of one of the popular wooden type fonts of the 19th century, with classic flat slab serifs, unbracketed, short descenders. Very popular in the 19th century.

A 1930s-era poster to "See America - Welcome to Montana" was issued by the United States Travel Bureau; one of the WPA (Works Progress Administrations) projects promoting travel and tourism within the country. The hexagon-inspired angular lettering on the poster provided the inspiration for Infrastructure JNL.