Avant Garde Gothic Alternates Are Back

ITC Avant Garde Gothic’s alts are a trademark of ’60s and ’70s design, but have seen a huge resurgence of late. Maligned by some, sought by many, Herb Lubalin’s logo-turned-typeface has become a go-to font for hipsters and fashion mags the world over. Thanks to our partner, Elsner+Flake, The Avant Garde ligs and alts are now back in digital form. Now you too can combine ‘P’ and ‘R’ in a most unnatural way. Yum.

Here are some more examples of designers who have fallen victim to the charms of the Avant Garde alternates and ligatures:

Jürgen Siebert (of FontShop Germany) on Avant Garde »
Alex White on Avant Garde »

UPDATE

By using the new ITC Avant Garde Gothic Pro and its built-in OpenType ligatures and alternates you have a far easier access to a fuller range of extra glyphs.

But this new release comes with a caveat: the italics are simply slanted obliques, so if proper italics are more important than easy access to alts and ligs, the savvy shopper should still choose the E+F version.