A beautiful sans-serif typeface designed in 1901 by Morris Fuller Benton. It combined the advantages of several serif and sans-serif types popular at the time into a non-monospaced blocky type into a font that is comfortable to read up close and easy to read from a distance. Benton named the typeface after Benjamin Franklin, American scientist, politician and printer, whom he imagined would appreciate such a design.
You have probably witnessed this type style in action in newspaper headlines or print advertisements many times; it is roughly as popular as the ubiquitous Cooper Black.
Franklin Gothic is the "official" typeface of the US Army and it is used on nametapes (3/4" letters for names under 11 characters and 1/2" Franklin Gothic Condensed letters for longer names) and nametags throughout the organization. As such, its use has also spread to other organizations which use it on nametags of all varieties. | 
