Franklin Gothic alternatives

Since we’ve talked about alternatives to a typeface I don’t like (Times New Roman) and I typeface I adore (Frutiger), let’s now talk about alternatives to a typeface I like, but haven’t used much: Franklin Gothic.

Graphic titled ‘Franklin Gothic’ with the phrase ‘Quickbeam’ shown in large letters in the middle. Two features of this typeface are called-out: extra bold display weight and curled tail on the uppercase ‘Q’.

The reason I haven’t used Franklin Gothic much historically is because the only font you get with Windows is Franklin Gothic Medium and that’s not general-purpose enough for most of my needs.

You do get access to the larger Franklin Gothic family of Book, Medium, Demi, and Heavy if you purchase Microsoft Office, but for one reason or another I’ve never gotten around to using it. I think this is mainly because I rarely create the poster and editorial designs that Franklin Gothic is known for. And while Franklin Gothic Book is a good typeface for body text, its Bold version isn’t particularly bold so you have to manually switch to Demi every time.

So assuming you don’t want to spend a few hundred dollars on buying the full Franklin Gothic typeface family, let’s talk about alternatives.

But first we need to talk about Franklin Gothic itself.

Franklin Gothic is three typefaces in a trench coat

Morris Fuller Benton designed Franklin Gothic for American Type Founders in 1902 in just one extra-bold display weight. Then in 1903 he designed Alternate Gothic, a compressed and moderately-bold version of Franklin Gothic that was made available in three numbered widths. Finally in 1908 he designed News Gothic, which is a lighter-weight version of Franklin Gothic.

So if you were to talk about the Franklin Gothic ‘family’ of typefaces at the start of the 20th century, you’d include all three of those in your discussion.

Graphic showing the phrase ‘Quickbeam’ in large text in Franklin Gothic, Alternate Gothic No.3, and News Gothic.

These days there are multiple versions of those individual typefaces available, each one fleshed out to a full family with several weights:

But for now let’s just focus on the ones readily available to me:

The good news for all of us is that high quality alternatives to all those typefaces are readily available, and several of them are free to use.

Franklin Gothic alternatives

If you’re looking for alternative-alternatives to Franklin Gothic – meaning something that is similar, but not the same – then check out Jeremiah Shoaf’s top-ten-alternatives list on Typewolf.

But if you’re looking for an excellent free and open source replacement to Franklin Gothic, then your best bet is Libre Franklin.

Libre Franklin comes in nine weights, so its regular weight is a good alternative to Franklin Gothic Book. Its letterforms are a little larger than Franklin Gothic, though, so you’ll need to reduce Libre Franklin’s font size to about 90% if you want a drop-in replacement.

Graphic showing the phrase ‘Quickbeam’ in large text in Franklin Gothic Book, Libre Franklin, and Libre Franklin with the font size reduced to 90%.

Similarly, Libre Franklin Medium is a good alternative to Franklin Gothic Medium – though you’ll have to reduce Libre Franklin’s font size to about 92% if you want a drop-in replacement.

Graphic showing the phrase ‘Quickbeam’ in large text in Franklin Gothic Medium, Libre Franklin Medium, and Libre Franklin Medium with the font size reduced to 92%.

A couple of minor tweaks to Libre Franklin’s font size and line height are all you need for this typeface family to be a drop-in replacement for the other Franklin Gothic weights as well.

Graphic showing two columns of short text blocks and large heading and title text. The left column shows these in Franklin Gothic Book, Franklin Gothic Medium, and Franklin Gothic Heavy. The right column shows these in Libre Franklin, Libre Franklin Medium, and Libre Franklin Black. A note below the right column reads, “Font sizes and line spacing adjusted to match”.

So that was easy.

Alternate Gothic alternatives

The original Alternate Gothic came in three numbered widths.

Graphic showing the phrase ‘Quickbeam’ in large text in Alternate Gothic No.1, Alternate Gothic No.2, and Alternate Gothic No.3.

It’s modern digital version no longer has numbered widths, but if you buy that you do get forty fonts at four different widths – so that’s cool.

But if you’re not after one of the particularly compressed versions, then Oswald is an excellent free and open source alternative. As with Libre Franklin, you’ll need to reduce its font size a bit if you’re after a drop-in replacement.

Graphic showing the phrase ‘Quickbeam’ in large text in Alternate Gothic No.3, Oswald, and Oswald with the font size reduced to 88%.

I really like Oswald and for the longest time used it as the heading typeface on this blog. It’s not great for running text, but it’s okay for short text blocks.

Graphic showing two columns of short text blocks and large heading and title text. The left column shows these in Alternate Gothic No.3. The right column shows these in Oswald. A note below the right column reads, “Font sizes adjusted to match”.

More recently I used Oswald Light in the letterhead design for my sister’s clinical practice.

Screenshot of the top of a letterhead that reads, “Dr. Asha Bedar, clinical psychologist”.

News Gothic alternatives

News Gothic is interesting because American Type Founders (who Morris Fuller Benton designed all these typefaces for) no longer sells this typeface. Instead you use Franklin Gothic Light. So all we have of the original typeface these days are versions and direct descendants from other type foundries.

I listed News Gothic’s various non-American Type Founders versions above and its most notable descendant is Benton Sans – which is fantastic, but expensive.

My preferred News Gothic alternative is Public Sans – which is excellent, free, and open source.

Graphic showing the phrase ‘Quickbeam’ in large text in News Gothic and Public Sans.

The thing I like most about Public Sans is that its characters are less ambiguous than News Gothic. For example, you can’t confuse its uppercase ‘i’ with its lowercase ‘l’ because the lowercase ‘l’ has that little curve at the bottom (like you can see in the word ‘Franklin’ below).

Graphic showing two columns of short text blocks and large heading and title text. The left column shows these in News Gothic. The right column shows these in Public Sans.

My favourite alternatives

While I really like and recommend Libre Franklin, Oswald, and Public Sans, those actually aren’t the alternatives I use most often.

My favourite alternatives to Franklin Gothic are Trade Gothic Next, Whitney Narrow, and Source Sans 3.

Graphic showing the phrase ‘Quickbeam’ in large text in Franklin Gothic Book, Trade Gothic Next, Whitney Narrow, and Source Sans 3.

Trade Gothic Next is Linotype’s alternative to Franklin Gothic. Its Regular weight is similar to Franklin Gothic, its Light weight is similar to News Gothic, and its Compressed and Condensed weights are similar to Alternate Gothic. It is an expensive typeface family, but I got its Regular weight as part of a sale bundle and have enjoyed using it since.

Whitney is one of my all-time favourite typefaces, and its Whitney Narrow variant is a modern and more friendly alternative to Franklin Gothic. These are both paid typefaces, but I think they’re worth every penny.

Source Sans 3, on the other hand, is a free typeface. It too is a friendlier and more modern version of Franklin Gothic. It’s also one I’ve used most often because it is so easily available on the web (eg in Google Docs and Google Fonts).

Graphic showing four short text blocks set in Franklin Gothic Book, Trade Gothic Next, Whitney Narrow, and Source Sans 3.

Concluding thoughts

Over the years I’ve looked at Franklin Gothic, News Gothic, and a bunch of other American gothics and though, “I should try to figure all this out” and now I’ve been able to do that.

I don’t expect I’ll use Franklin Gothic any more than I have in the past, but at least I now know what to use if I want that express that kind of feeling!