SH&L ad: “The best typography never gets noticed.”
Contributed by Stephen Coles
on May 7th, 2015. Artwork published in
circa 1961
.
Source: 2.bp.blogspot.com License: All Rights Reserved.
When a good ad is set right, no one notices the letters*—they’re too busy reading the words.
* Except art directors
2 Comments on “SH&L ad: “The best typography never gets noticed.””
Was Franklin Gothic just left behind now in 2026?
Franklin Gothic came up less in Uses designed in recent years.
However, that’s only true if one’s looking exclusively at the original version (and direct digitizations of it). Once you include reinterpretations like ITC Franklin Gothic, ATF Franklin Gothic, Libre Franklin, and HEX Franklin, the picture is different.
Franklin Gothic as a genre is still going strong, see also the custom NYT Franklin. If you widen the perspective and also look at interpretations of the so-called American Gothic that don’t have “Franklin” in the name, you’ll get even more hits, see for example Benton Sans, CoFo Gothic, GT America, American Grotesk, etc.