One of the books I most admired at the Pyramid Atlantic book fair earlier this month was a book from Sherwin Beach Press — Searching For Morris Fuller Benton. Benton is a type designer, best known for Franklin Gothic.
Benton is the most prolific type designer of the hot metal era, but unlike Frederic Goudy, Bruce Rogers, or William Dwiggins–whose ideas about type design are well documented–Benton wrote nothing about his own work, nor was it the subject of analysis by others. Juliet Shen has made a meticulous study of his work, including a new enumeration of designs appropriately attributed to him.
