Century Gothic vs Futura

Century Gothic was influenced by Futura — a digital face in the Futura tradition.

Type specimen — Century Gothic (Geometric sans); shown in Questrial, a close match (OFL)

Century Gothic

Monotype's 1991 geometric sans — a digital, slightly wide-set face in the Futura tradition, drawn to compete with ITC Avant Garde and bundled with Microsoft systems. Clean, circular, and notoriously ink-hungry.

  • Geometric construction with circular bowls
  • Single-story a and single-story g
  • Wide-set proportions and very high x-height
  • Pointed apexes on A, M, N
  • Even, near-monoline strokes
Full Century Gothic guide →
Type specimen — Futura (Geometric sans); shown in Jost, a close match (OFL)

Futura

Paul Renner's 1927 geometric sans — letterforms built from near-perfect circles, triangles, and straight lines, the Bauhaus ideal of rational, modern type made commercial.

  • Letterforms built from circles, triangles, and lines
  • Near-perfect circular bowls (o, b, d, p, q)
  • Single-story a and a simple, open-tailed g
  • Sharply pointed apexes on A, M, N, V, W
  • Long ascenders rising above the cap height
Full Futura guide →

At a glance

Century GothicFutura
Era19911927
DisciplineTypographyTypography
RegionUnited Kingdom, United StatesGermany
FamilySans-serifSans-serif
Formal traitsgeometric, single-story-a, monoline, high-x-heightgeometric, monoline, low-contrast, pointed-apex

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