Not all typefaces are designed to be legible. Many are drawn to create a typographic statement, or provide a particular spirit or feeling to graphic communication. Some are even designed just to stand out from the crowd. To the degree that a typeface has personality, spirit, or distinction, however, it often suffers proportionally on the legibility scale.

A TYPOGRAPHER'S VIEW
So what makes a typeface legible? The long-standing typographic maxim is that the most legible typefaces are those that are transparent to the reader. Additionally, the most legible typefaces are those that have big features and restrained design characteristics. While these attributes may seem conflicting, actually they are not. “Big features” refers to things like large, open counters, ample lowercase x-heights, and character shapes that are obvious and easy to recognize. The most legible typefaces are also restrained, in that the weight changes within character strokes are subtle; and serifs, if the face has them, are not a dominant part of the character.

As far as being “transparent” is concerned, this is a metaphor coined by Beatrice Ward, Monotype’s famous marketing manager of the 1930s and ’40s. She once wrote that good type was like “a crystal goblet” which allows content to be more important than the container. Ward’s contention was that the best types are those that do not get in the way of the communication process: faces that are virtually invisible and allow words—not the type—to make the statement.

A NEW FRANKLIN
David Berlow of The Font Bureau had typographic legibility at the forefront of his mind when he began the redesign of Franklin Gothic for International Typeface Corporation. In addition to their popular “retail” fonts, the Font Bureau has a successful business designing, manufacturing, and providing specialized typefaces to newspapers and periodicals. While the company has a suite of typefaces they rely on as the design foundation for these projects, they wanted to add a Franklin Gothic series to their offering. They could have started from scratch, but Berlow figured, “Why start from a blank screen, when you can build on an established foundation?” ITC was approached for two reasons: they had one of the best examples of Franklin Gothic in their library, and Berlow had previously worked with ITC on the development of the Franklin Gothic Condensed series.

While ITC’s original Franklin Gothic was released as two designs, one for display setting and one for text, early digital interpretations were developed as “text/display” solutions. This is a nice idea that provides for the same fonts to be used from 6-point to billboard sizes (sort of like men’s socks: one size fits all). This can also be problematic: Compromises in a typeface design that allow it to perform within a wide range of sizes almost always limit its level of performance at any given size.

Font Bureau’s proposal was straightforward yet all encompassing: “Let us rework the ITC Franklin Gothic family; enlarge it into separate text and display designs, then let us sell it and use it for our custom design projects.”

NO QUICK FIX
A short time into the project, however, both parties learned that what was supposed to be a relatively simple reworking and respacing of the existing letters to perform well within a specific size range became a major design project. “Franklin is a face that’s so familiar and so straightforward that you would think that you almost can’t help but maintain its legibility in a sensitive interpretation,” says Berlow. “The reality, however, is much more complicated. The devil is in getting every detail of contrast, angle, intersection, and overlap synchronized within each style, across the range of widths and weights, and between the roman and italic designs. In truth, a monumental task.”

Berlow dove deeply into the task of adding new weights and proportions to the family, taking advantage in the display range to make very light and very bold condensed faces that wouldn’t work below 20 to 24 point. The connection between the bowl and stem of lowercase characters was designed to have a crisper feel.

He also discovered that the ITC Franklin Gothics required a mountain of work to become the optimum text designs he and ITC wanted. The end result is, in fact, two text designs: one for use from about 8 point to 14 point, and another for use at very small sizes.