Century Gothic vs Geometric Sans-serif
Century Gothic evolved from Geometric Sans-serif.
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
Geometric Sans-serif
Sans-serifs built from compass-and-straightedge primitives — circles, triangles, and straight lines — the Bauhaus dream of a rational, elemental alphabet. Futura is its founding monument.
- Forms built from circles, triangles, and straight lines
- Near-perfect circular bowls (o, b, d, p, q)
- Single-story a, almost always a circle and stem
- Single-story g with a simple open or looped tail
- Sharply pointed apexes on A, M, N, V, W
At a glance
| Century Gothic | Geometric Sans-serif | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 1991 | 1920s–1930s |
| Discipline | Typography | Typography |
| Region | United Kingdom, United States | Germany, Europe |
| Family | Sans-serif | Sans-serif |
| Formal traits | geometric, single-story-a, monoline, high-x-height | geometric, monoline, single-story-a, pointed-apex |
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