ITC Avant Garde
 | |
| Category | Sans-serif |
|---|---|
| Classification | Geometric sans-serif |
| Designer(s) | Herb Lubalin, Tom Carnase |
| Foundry | International Typeface Corporation |
| Date released | 1970-1977 |
ITC Avant Garde Gothic is a font family based on the logo font used in the Avant Garde magazine. Herb Lubalin devised the logo concept and its companion headline typeface, and then he and Tom Carnase, a partner in Lubalin's design firm, worked together to transform the idea into a full-fledged typeface.
The condensed fonts were drawn by Ed Benguiat in 1974, and the obliques were designed by André Gürtler, Erich Gschwind and Christian Mengelt in 1977.
The original designs include one version for setting headlines and one for text copy. However, in the initial digitization, only the text design was chosen, and the ligatures and alternate characters were not included.
The font family consists of 5 weights (4 for condensed), with complementary obliques for widest width fonts.
When ITC released the OpenType version of the font, the original 33 alternate characters and ligatures, plus extra characters were included.
Elsner+Flake also issued the ligatures and alternate characters separately as Avant Garde Gothic Alternate.
Cold Type versions
ITC Avant Garde was never cast into actual foundry type, appearing first only in cold type. Alphatype, Autologic, Berthold, Compugraphic, Dymo, Star/Photon, Harris, Mergenthaler, MGD Graphic Systems, and Varityper all sold the face under the name Avant Garde, while Graphic Systems Inc. offered the face as Suave.[1]
Digital versions
ITC Avant Garde Std
It is an OpenType version sold by Adobe. The font family consists of 5 weights, with complementary obliques for all weights and widths. It supports Adobe Western 2 character set. However, the alternate characters, ligatures (except linguistic), and extra characters found in the ITC fonts are not included.
ITC Avant Garde Multilingual
It is a version with Cyrillic support from ParaType. Cyrillic glyphs were developed at ParaType (ParaGraph) in 1993 by Vladimir Yefimov. Alternates and ligatures were added in 2008 by Olga Umpeleva.
The family consists of 4 fonts in 2 weights (book and demi) in 1 width, with complementary obliques.
ITC Avant Garde Gothic Pro
It is an OpenType variant of the original ITC Avant Garde Gothic, plus a suite of additional cap and lowercase alternates, new ligatures, unicase glyphs. It supports ISO Adobe 2, Adobe CE, Latin Extended character sets.
In addition, the obliques are altered from the original, where optical corrections are no longer used.[2]
ITC Avant Garde Mono
It is a monospaced version designed by Ned Bunnel in 1983.
Digital version was produced by Elsner+Flake. The family consists of 4 fonts in 2 weights (bold and light) in 1 width, with complementary italics.
William Sans LET
William Sans LET is a very similar font, but the "regular" typeface is known as "Plain 1.0".
Selected usage
- ITC Avant Garde Gothic is the currently main font for the logo of Meralco and Adidas
- ITC Avant Garde Gothic is one of the main typeface for AXN Asia
- ITC Avant Garde Gothic is one of the main typeface for Fox International Channels including Fox (UK & Ireland), Fox Asia and others
- ITC Avant Garde Gothic is the font of the logo/name of the French producer David Guetta
- ITC Avant Garde Gothic is the font of the logo/name of the Canadian singer Justin Bieber
- ITC Avant Garde Gothic is one of the main typeface for Brazilian's broadcast TV Globo
- ITC Avant Garde Gothic, with an enlarged capital N, has been the logo type for the international TV soap, Neighbours since 2007, replacing the previously used Brush Script used 1985-2007.
- ITC Avant Garde was used for the logo of Popular Science from December 1983 until October 1995.
- ITC Avant Garde Gothic is one of the typefaces used for the lower thirds on Fox News Channel
- ITC Avant Garde Gothic is used in some or most CW or MyNetworkTV affiliates in the United States. In addition, it is also used in logos of some of the Big Three (CBS, NBC, ABC) affiliates.
- ITC Avant Garde Gothic was used on the PBS Logo from 1971 to 1984.
- ITC Avant Garde Gothic is used as the in-game typeface for the video game Saints Row: The Third, and its sequel Saints Row IV.
- Also ITC Avant Garde appears in the logo/name of the 1986 FIFA World Cup.
- A version of ITC Avant Garde is used for the logo of Genzyme.
- The font is also been used on the covers of the manga Bleach (manga) (starting on the 55th volume).
- The font was also used by CBS for their "Special Presentation" intros in the 1970s and 80s.
- The font is used in the title of the Anime series, Angel Beats!
Derivatives
ITC Lubalin Graph is a slab-serif version of ITC Avant Garde, also designed by Lubalin.[3]
Similar
- URW Gothic L is a similar font with identical metrics, intended for use as a replacement for ITC Avant Garde in the PostScript Base 35 fonts for the Ghostscript program. The font has since been released under free and open source terms.
- TeX Gyre Adventor is an open-source extension of the above font adding many new characters, and special alternate glyphs.
See also
References
- ↑ Lawson, Alexander, Archie Provan, and Frank Romano, Primer Metal Typeface Identification, National Composition Association, Arlington, Virginia, 1976, pp. 34 - 35.
- ↑ Ain't What ITC Used to Be
- ↑ ITC Lubalin Graph Font Family - by Herb Lubalin, Ed Benguiat
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to ITC Avant Garde. |
- ITC Classics: ITC Avant Garde Gothic Pro
- What's Hot From ITC: October 2005
- Type Trading Card #11
- ITC Avant Garde Gothic Font Family - by Herb Lubalin, Tom Carnase (renewed reference)
- Paratype: ITC Avant Garde Gothic font
- FontShop: Avant Garde Gothic Alternate
- ITC Avant Garde Mono - now a suspended page
- Adobe - ITC Avant Garde Gothic Std Full Family