The English scholar of typography, Stanley Morison, wrote of Monotype Corporation’s Goudy Modern: “It is strikingly handsome in mass (and) reads easily, in spite of the fact that it is, on the whole, a condensed font, the weight is so nicely judged and the thicks and thins so cleverly adjusted that the effect is rather generous and open.”

Goudy Modern, designed in 1918, is unusual in that its shapes were derived from a decorative typeface that Goudy had designed earlier; text types are usually designed before the display versions appear.