Franklin Gothic Typographic Zine
Faith Stevens n11245204 DVB201 A2
Inspiration
Existing Zines
In this typographic zine titled 'Great Fonts and Their Creators' from Ann Ivanovskaya is an example of an effective zine with the focus on typography and without images. Ivanovskaya uses typography in an experimental way that creates visual interest while still being easy to follow and legible. I enjoy the use of contrasting colours in visual elements along with using the simple text layouts for the body of the text. I also found the small breaks in texts from the larger letters to be effective. This zine although is experimental, is not overloaded or crowded and instead is breathable and minimal. I aim to create an experimental but simple zine myself.
In this zine titled 'This Is Why' by Marina Beatriz I found that their use of the continuation throughout the spread is very effective. Beatriz uses both images and texts that spread across both pages which creates balance and more visual interest to the zine. The pages both look impactful on their own as well as together, which inspires me to create something similar for my zine. I also enjoy the amount of white space this zine uses while still uses many elements experimentally. I also enjoy the the creative use of hierarchy, although some text may be the furtherest thing right on the page, through the use of size and font, it still is the first thing the user reads.
Visual Inspirations
For my zine, I wanted to capture the feel of the time period in which Franklin Gothic was created in while also adding more modern elements to it. I looked at newspapers from the 1900s that Franklin Gothic could be used in, and found that the they had similar layouts, with the header at the top in bold followed by the date in a much smaller font size surrounded by two lines. I also found that the body text was laid out within columns and were all aligned justified. However, I knew creating a zine simply replicating newspapers would not be visually interesting and would not achieve my desired look, so I also looked at inspiration from trends at the time and found that jazz and ragtime music were rising trends. I found that these visual were mostly neutral toned or black and white, with pops of muted colours such as red, teal, yellow and pink. I also looked at modern jazz and typographic posters in order to achieve the combination of early 20th century and current day style I was going for. I found that today's work is much more experimental and less restrictive.
Thumbnail Sketches
To begin designing, I initially creating many different thumbnail pages of various layouts for each page. This allowed me to explore different layouts and get more creative in an easy and adaptable way. From these various different thumbnails, I also explored them on InDesign and I found what did and did not work and went back to the thumbnail sketches to explore more based on my findings.
After experimenting both analog and digitally, I created a rough thumbnail sketch of my final zine.
Iterations
First Draft
In this first draft, I enjoyed the overall colour scheme chosen and feel that the zine provided. It achieved the combination of 1900s and current day inspirations I was going for, however, minor changes needed to be made in order to improve the overall zine. I first did not enjoy the title page as much as I wanted, and felt I needed to remove the 'the age of ragtime' as it may not make sense to a typographic zine with no mention of ragtime music in the zine. I also felt the contents pages was a little bare and adding some visual element would improve this. On page four, I liked the overall layout of the page, however, felt the three larger texts were a but cluttered together in contrast to the rest of the page. The next two pages I also felt were bare and needed more visual elements or a switch up in the composition. I experimented with changed the title's composition with rules of hierarchy in mind, and decided to place it second while still being the first thing the user reads. On the 'designer profile' spread, although I felt the readability was fine and the hiearchy of the text made sense, I felt it also felt bare. I decided to change this in the final zine to be more experimental and challenge the hierarchy more. On page 11, I enjoyed the simplicity of the page in order to reflect the trend, however, I felt changing the background colour would put more emphasis on the change in style and topic. I continue to slightly change other pages to have a little more visual elements in them as well as slightly varying the layout of them. I found the 'about this zine' page to look inconsistent with the rest of the zine and also bare as well. I decided to change it to a more classic and minimal newspaper layout. I also slightly changed the back cover to have consistent spacing throughout each text instead.
Final Zine
Text:
Page 1: 1902 1902 1902 Franklin Gothic
Page 2: CONTENTS faith stevens n11245204 June 18, 2023. 01 feature article pg. 3 02 designer profile pg. 7 03 type trend pg. 11 04 fy(t)i pg. 13 05 about this zine pg. 14.
Page 3:
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdfranklingothic.bcdeghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabc1902.defghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijkmnopqrstmorrisfullerbenton.lmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabc
feature article franklin gothic, 1902.
Page 4: FG 1902 Franklin Gothic was first designed in 1902 by Morris Fuller Benton for the American Type Founders Company (ATF). sans serif. MFB Morris Fuller Benton x2 The typeface has been around for over a century and still has wide use across many different contexts today – a truly timeless typeface.
Page 5: INTRODUCTION Benton named Franklin Gothic after American Statesmen Benjamin Franklin whom he admired for his contributions to printing in America while the ‘gothic’ aspect refers to the style. Although gothic historically describes blackletter typefaces, in The United States ‘gothic’ became a term to describe sans serif fonts.
The typeface originally only was composed of a singular weight, however, over the following decades – yes decades – was adapted and extended to have other variants including thin, light, medium, bold, heavy and italicised by ATF. These additions only further enhanced the applications for the typeface and solidified the timelessness of it.
In the early 1900s, the font was used for advertising and in newspapers and still is to this day along with wider uses. Franklin Gothic was used on Lady Gaga’s sophomore album ‘The Fame Monster’ and the condensed version was even used for the subtitles in the Star Wars franchise.
Page 6: Franklin Gothic CRITIQUE Although the typeface is one of many simplistic sans serif fonts that exist, Benton managed to design a font that stands out from the others. At its core, Franklin Gothic appears to be a simple dark, bold font yet, the typeface holds a warm aura to it. This is through the use of the subtle variations in weight within some characters and the width of the lettering, but we will get more into this later. This typeface is a prime example of a timeless font and this is evident through its various uses more than a century later.
Page 7: Morris Fuller Benton x56 WHO IS MORRIS FULLER BENTON?
Page 8: DESIGNER PROFILE Morris Fuller Benton 1872-1947 Morris Fuller Benton was born in 1872 in Wisconsin, USA to Linn Boyd Benton - one of the founders of the American Type Company agglomeration.
Page 9: Benton began working for the ATF – which formed in 1892 - at the turn of the 20th century, in which he worked there for several decades before retiring in 1937. Benton attended university for engineering at Cornell University which allowed him to be introduced to the company by his father whom he assisted with the creation of inventions as well as standardising type lines. Along with this, he began helping his father create typefaces such as Century Expanded in 1900 before eventually moving on to create his own designs. He created Franklin Gothic in 1902 and became the head of the design department from 1903 to 1937. He would the go on to design over 200 different typefaces over his career until he passed away in 1947. ***
Page 10: ATP American Type Founders Company est. 1892 the ATF formed as a result of the unification of 23 of the largest type foundaries in the USA.
Page 11: 2023 Type Trend: Super Sober.
Page 12: Type Trend super sober 2023. Monotype names ten type trends of 2023, including a trend they title ‘Super Sober’. This trend celebrates simple typefaces that can be used for quietness in a space that otherwise is full of experimental and loud designs in 2023. In recent years, maximalism has become a rising trend and designers are pushing the boundaries of legibility. The Super Sober trend is an attempt to create a break in the design world that can seem overloaded at times to create a sense of calmness. The trend is a version of minimalism that has been around since the dawn of design, however, can be used in combination with muted colour schemes as well as white space to truly achieve a break in the mass experimentation we see today. This also means that designers can also take a break from trying to achieve something completely unique which can feel overwhelming and come back to something more breathable.
Franklin Gothic is a prime example of the Super Sober trend as it can be used to create precise designs through its classic sans serif form. The typeface, although created over a century ago, still fits pleasantly in design trends today due to its simplicity and versatility in combination with the cycle of minimalism trends that occur.
Page 13: FY(T)I: for your typographic information One of the prime aspects of Franklin Gothic that makes it so useful is its readability, however, this is the case with thousands of fonts, so what makes it different? n the line weight of the sans serif font is consistent throughout majority of the characters, however, there are subtle differences.
Benton purposefully designed these characters with slight contrast in stroke seen in the shoulder of the ‘n’ and the lower bowl of the ‘a’. This gives the typeface personality among other mono-linear sans serif typefaces. a
Page 14: ABOUT THIS ZINE. This zine I created aims to capture the timelessness of Franklin Gothic through the use of both aesthetic influences from the 1900s and current day.
Page 15: est. 1902 With the creation of this zine, I aimed to create something that illustrated the represented the time period Benton created this typeface in through the different layouts as well as the colour selection chosen.
I used inspirations from newspapers that this font could be found in during the early 20th century, however, I did not want this restrict my creative freedom on the entirety of the zine. I also used current inspirations to play with the composition and elements to add visual interest to the zine.
The process of this zine at first, was quite overwhelming. Choosing a singular font felt a bit daunting and only chosing three colours even more so. Also getting started of this zine proved to be difficult, I had trouble coming up with different layouts with the idea of newspapers in mind, however, once I unrestricted myself this, I began coming up with layout thumbnails and found it difficult to decide on the most effective ones.
Going into this assessment, I did not believe I would enjoy creating and experimenting with it as much as I did. Once I got going, this zine became something I enjoyed creating and will certainly explore more in the future, with less restrictions. The process taught me that even without images or many colours, I was still able to create something effective and in the future I will explore without relying on images as much.
Page 16: franklin gothic x8
Colour
I had several different ideas for the colour scheme and experimented with various combinations. From my visual inspiration, I knew I wanted to create a neutral toned zine with perhaps a pop of colour. I experimented with off white mostly as the background colour as I felt this mimicked the newspaper feel I was going for. I also experimented with black and white and different shades of grey, however, I felt this was creatively restricting and also did not capture the more fun jazzy vibes I was after. I experimented with red, yellows and even navys to try match the slighter upbeat yet mature feel. I eventually settled on a beige background with brown and blue text. I originally had a more red, earthy toned brown however I changed this to an almost dark brown to increase contrast and therefore readability. I also had a darker true blue, but also changed to be lighter and slightly more teal toned to create a more uplifting colour scheme.
Composition
With the composition of my final zine, I wanted to have mixed compositions throughout the entire zine. Originally, I did have the idea to have a zine that would replicate a newspaper, however, felt this would be visually unappealing and creatively restricting. I decided to then only use a newspaper layout for the more body text heavy pages such as the introduction page instead and have more experimental pages throughout. I achieved the newspaper layout by using two long columns of justified text with a bolded heading and smaller subheading below it. On other pages, I decided to have them all different in order to create a more interesting zine overall. On the designer profile page I utilised the spread to create a larger page instead of having breaks like the other pages. However, I wish I implemented this idea on other pages and experimented with the idea of being able to be read both pages on their own or together as a spread.
References
Beatriz, M. 2023. This Is Why Zine. Behance.https://www.behance.net/gallery/164497023/This-Is-Why-Zine
Cost, P. 2015. The Bentons: How an American Father and Son Changed the Printing Industry. Morris Benton. https://morrisbenton.com/category/morris-fuller-benton/
Ivanovskaya, A. 2023. Typographic edition "Great fonts and their creators". Behance. https://www.behance.net/gallery/172199033/Typographic-edition-Great-fonts-and-their-creators
Linotype. n/d. Franklin Gothic. Fonts.com. https://www.fonts.com/font/linotype/franklin-gothic/story
Microsoft. 2022. Franklin Gothic font family. Microsoft. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/font-list/franklin-gothic
Monotype. 2023. 10 Ways to use the 2023 Type Trends in your designs. https://www.monotype.com/resources/expertise/10-ways-use-2023-type-trends?utm_medium=google&utm_source=paid_search&utm_campaign=TMP_PDG_US_Search_PROS_Non-Brand_Type_Trends_AMER&utm_id=PDG&utm_term=USA&utm_content=Type-Trends-Ebook
Paperback. n/d. Franklin Gothic. Paperback Design https://paperbackdesign.com/typefaces/franklin-gothic/
van Bronkhorst, M. & Marini, I, & Ben Kiel, 2019. A New Take on an Old Favorite. American Type Founders Collection. http://atftype.com/atf-franklin-gothic.php
You Work For Them. 2023. A Brief History Of Franklin Gothic. You Work for Them. https://www.youworkforthem.com/blog/2023/05/06/history-franklin-gothic/
