Franklin Gothic

Franklin Gothic, the widely used sans serif typeface named after Benjamin Franklin, was designed around 1903 by Morris Fuller Benton, head of typeface development at American Type Founders. In 1980 ITC commissioned Victor Caruso to produce four new weights – book, medium, demi and heavy – and in 1991, David Berlow drew twelve condensed, compressed and extra-compressed variations. The typeface can be distinguished by the weight stress within individual letters, for example the left side of the A is lighter than the right, and the left stroke of the M is lighter than the other three strokes. I came upon this album art, with its pre-digitised type, on one of those Saturday mornings when you run into someone you know at every turn – one of whom was taking a whole lot of records to the op-shop. After we stopped to shoot the breeze she went on her way one Beach Boys record lighter.