Monotype Grotesque

Monotype Grotesque is a realist sans-serif typeface designed by Frank Hinman Pierpont (1860–1937) and released by the Monotype foundry in 1926.

Pierpont based his design for Monotype Grotesque on Ideal, an earlier more idiosyncratic sans-serif by the H. Berthold AG foundry and William Thorowogood's 1832 face titled "Grotesque." Uppercase characters are of near equal width, the G has a spur in some weights, and the M in the non-condensed weights is square. The lowercase characters a, e, g, and t follow the model of twentieth century English romans. Monotype Grotesque is a large extended typeface family with multiple widths from condensed to extended.

Though Monotype Grotesque never achieved the popularity of Akzidenz Grotesk, or its own contemporaries Futura, and Gill Sans, it remained a steady seller through the twentieth century, and is found in early twentieth century avant garde printing from western and central Europe.

The basic family design is inconsistent across different styles, particularly in Black, Condensed, Extended fonts.

OpenType version supports ISO Adobe 2 (Adobe Western 2) character set.

Arial is designed based on Monotype Grotesque.