Griffith Gothic

Griffith Gothic re-imagines a classic American design, paired with unorthodox details. Its story begins with Bell Gothic, C. H. Griffith’s 1937 custom design for telephone directories. To anticipate ink spread on press, Griffith thinned and flattened lowercase joins, blunted sharp corners, and enlarged counterforms. The result was an object lesson in defensive typeface design. Graphic designers would later become enamored of Bell Gothic’s unusual rhythm and drastic moves, and use it for eye-catching headlines well outside its original target size of six to eight point. Patrick Mitchell at Fast Company commissioned a full headline series based on Bell Gothic with extra weights and a condensed width, and a wholly new italic. More recently, Fred Shallcrass carefully revised and updated the family. [frerejones.com]

Originally released by Font Bureau in 1997 and moved to Frere–Jones Type in 2020 [fontsinuse.com], available through Type Network. An updated version was published on the foundry’s website in December 2024.