Broadway (typeface)

Last updated
Broadway
Broadway Font.svg
Category Sans Serif
Classification Display
Designer(s) Morris Fuller Benton
Commissioned by American Type Founders
Foundry American Type Founders
Date created1927
Date released1928
Re-issuing foundries Lanston Monotype
Broadway Font Specimen.svg
Sample

Broadway is a decorative typeface, perhaps the archetypal Art Deco typeface. The original face was designed by Morris Fuller Benton in 1927 for ATF as a capitals only display face. It had a long initial run of popularity, before being discontinued by ATF in 1954. It was re-discovered in the Cold Type Era and has ever since been used to evoke the feeling of the twenties and thirties. The font has been used in the TV shows Rhoda and My Life as a Teenage Robot. Several variants were made: [1]

Digital Copies

Digital versions are now made by Linotype, Elsner+Flake, Monotype, Bitstream, and URW++. Similar fonts, such as ITC Manhattan and Glitzy are sold by ITC and Ingrimayne Type respectively.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bodoni</span> Typeface

Bodoni is the name given to the serif typefaces first designed by Giambattista Bodoni (1740–1813) in the late eighteenth century and frequently revived since. Bodoni's typefaces are classified as Didone or modern. Bodoni followed the ideas of John Baskerville, as found in the printing type Baskerville—increased stroke contrast reflecting developing printing technology and a more vertical axis—but he took them to a more extreme conclusion. Bodoni had a long career and his designs changed and varied, ending with a typeface of a slightly condensed underlying structure with flat, unbracketed serifs, extreme contrast between thick and thin strokes, and an overall geometric construction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frederic Goudy</span> American printer and type designer (1865–1947)

Frederic William Goudy was an American printer, artist and type designer whose typefaces include Copperplate Gothic, Goudy Old Style and Kennerley. He was one of the most prolific of American type designers and his self-named type continues to be one of the most popular in America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Morris Fuller Benton</span> American typeface designer

Morris Fuller Benton was an American typeface designer who headed the design department of the American Type Founders (ATF), for which he was the chief type designer from 1900 to 1937.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franklin Gothic</span> Family of sans-serif fonts

Franklin Gothic and its related faces are a large family of sans-serif typefaces in the industrial or grotesque style developed in the early years of the 20th century by the type foundry American Type Founders (ATF) and credited to its head designer Morris Fuller Benton. “Gothic” was a contemporary term meaning sans-serif.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cheltenham (typeface)</span> 1896 display typeface

Cheltenham is a typeface for display use designed in 1896 by architect Bertram Goodhue and Ingalls Kimball, director of the Cheltenham Press. The original drawings were known as Boston Old Style and were made about 14" high. These drawings were then turned over to Morris Fuller Benton at American Type Founders (ATF) who developed it into a final design. Trial cuttings were made as early as 1899 but the face was not complete until 1902. The face was patented by Kimball in 1904. Later the basic face was spun out into an extensive type family by Morris Fuller Benton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Goudy Old Style</span> Typeface

Goudy Old Style is an old-style serif typeface originally created by Frederic W. Goudy for American Type Founders (ATF) in 1915.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">News Gothic</span> Grotesque sans-serif typeface

News Gothic is a sans-serif typeface designed by Morris Fuller Benton, and was released in 1908 by his employer American Type Founders (ATF). The typeface is similar in proportion and structure to Franklin Gothic, also designed by Benton, but lighter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bank Gothic</span> Typeface

Bank Gothic is a rectilinear geometric sans-serif typeface designed by Morris Fuller Benton for American Type Founders and released in 1930. The design has become popular from the late twentieth century to suggest a science-fiction, military, corporate, or sports aesthetic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Centaur (typeface)</span> Typeface

Centaur is a serif typeface by book and typeface designer Bruce Rogers, based on the Renaissance-period printing of Nicolas Jenson around 1470. He used it for his design of the Oxford Lectern Bible. It was given widespread release by the British branch of Monotype, paired with an italic designed by calligrapher Frederic Warde and based on the slightly later work of calligrapher and printer Ludovico Vicentino degli Arrighi. The italic has sometimes been named separately as the "Arrighi" italic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clearface</span> Typeface

Clearface is a serif typeface designed by Morris Fuller Benton with the collaboration of his father Linn Boyd Benton, produced at American Type Founders in 1907.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Linn Boyd Benton</span> American typographer

Linn Boyd Benton was an American typeface designer and inventor of technology for producing metal type.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Maitland Cleland</span> American painter (1880–1964)

Thomas Maitland Cleland was an American book designer, painter, illustrator, and type designer.

Robert Wiebking (1870–1927) was a German-American engraver typeface designer who was known for cutting type matrices for Frederic Goudy from 1911 to 1926.

Sol Hess was an American typeface designer. After a three-year scholarship course at Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Design, he began at Lanston Monotype in 1902, rising to typographic manager in 1922. He was a close friend and collaborator with Monotype art director Frederic Goudy, succeeding him in that position in 1940. Hess was particularly adept at expanding type faces into whole families, allowing him to complete 85 faces for Monotype, making him America's fourth most prolific type designer. While he was with Monotype, Hess worked on commissions for many prominent users of type, including, Crowell-Collier, Sears Roebuck, Montgomery Ward, Yale University Press, World Publishing Company, and Curtis Publishing for whom he re-designed the typography of their Saturday Evening Post.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Century type family</span> Typeface

Century is a family of serif type faces particularly intended for body text. The family originates from a first design, Century Roman, cut by American Type Founders designer Linn Boyd Benton in 1894 for master printer Theodore Low De Vinne, for use in The Century Magazine. ATF rapidly expanded it into a very large family, first by Linn Boyd, and later by his son Morris.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Souvenir (typeface)</span> Typeface

Souvenir is a serif typeface designed in 1914 by Morris Fuller Benton for American Type Founders. It was loosely based on Schelter-Antiqua and Schelter-Kursiv, a 1905 Art Nouveau type issued by the J.G. Schelter & Giesecke foundry in Leipzig. It has a much softer appearance than other old style faces, with a generally light look, rounded serifs, and very little contrast between thick and thin strokes. Like Cheltenham, it shows the influence of the Arts and Crafts Movement without belonging to a specific historical style. A 1970s redesign by Ed Benguiat, adding extra styles and an italic, became far more popular than the initial release, and is the source of most versions sold today.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cloister (typeface)</span> Typeface

Cloister is a serif typeface that was designed by Morris Fuller Benton and published by American Type Founders from around 1913. It is loosely based on the printing of Nicolas Jenson in Venice in the 1470s, in what is now called the "old style" of serif fonts. American Type Founders presented it as an attractive but highly usable serif typeface, suitable both for body text and display use.

References

  1. MacGrew, Mac, American Metal Typefaces of the Twentieth Century Oak Knoll Books, New Castle Delaware, 1993, ISBN   0-938768-34-4, pp. 50–51.