ITC Avant Garde Gothic

Designer: Herb Lubalin, Tom Carnase // Foundry: ITC // Country of origin: United States Release year: 1970 // Classification: Geometric Sans

ITC Avant Garde Gothic was a response to popular demand for the type in the logo of Avant Garde, a groundbreaking magazine of the 1960s. The logo, designed by Herb Lubalin, was lettered by Tom Carnase. From it the two created a typeface for use in the magazine only. Later it became ITC’s first offering. Key traits are a large x-height, strict geometry, and the infamous leaning letters and ligatures that allow extra tight fitting words. These glyphs are often abused, leading Ed Benguiat to famously declare, “The only place Avant Garde looks good is in the words ‘Avant Garde.’” There are a few digital versions of the typeface. The ITC Pro fonts have many of the alts and ligs, but with merely slanted obliques instead of corrected ones offered by Elsner+Flake.