Developed at Cranbrook, the first joint design by Gavillet & Rust who would later establish Optimo. One of the few Multiple Master fonts released by a foundry other than Adobe, Detroit has an axis which shifts between strict, angular geometry to smoother shapes with rounded corners.

Optimo considered Detroit more of an experiment than a product, and discontinued the font around 2000. AF Generation, (ACME, 2002) is based on a very similar concept, but was released as a large family with refined instances, rather than a MM font.