Frutiger is certainly a good choice. On their website, they say "While American “gothics” such as News Gothic (1908) have long been a mainstay of editorial settings, and European “humanists” such as Frutiger (1975) have excelled in signage applications, Whitney bridges this divide in a single design."

So News Gothic might not be a bad choice, either, but I think there's more Frutiger in Whitney than there is News Gothic.

What about Charlotte Sans?

http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/letraset/charlotte-sans

Those are the only things I can think of that would most likely be cheaper than Whitney.

Hello John,

Based on your description News Gothic from Adobe is the closest match that I can think of at the moment. Perhaps other folks will have better suggestions.

Regards,
SB

I also read that when designing Whitney, Tobias Frere-Jones admitted that he tried to recreate Frutiger, but he purposely put all the calligraphic 'slants' in the wrong places. So yes, Frutiger is probably a good call.

Beware the oblique italics of Frutiger. A much better substitute for Whitney is Frutiger Next.

I've been using Whitney almost constantly for years. In that time I have found that Myriad Pro is the best substitute.

Beware the oblique italics of Frutiger.

Really. Why?
I've never been put off by Fritiger's obliques, Nor Univers, nor Helvetica's. Not every type requires an "italic".

In Frutiger: Typefaces, The Complete Works, Frutiger says that the cursive forms were drawn by others, over his objection, for Frutiger Next, and he thinks they out of character with the typeface. In fact he writes that he was worried about Frutiger Next hurting his reputation.

Neue Frutiger, done after the book was completed, is evidently his effort, with the assistance of Akira Kobayashi, to do it right. This corrects the adjustments in characters he had to make for first Linotype versions, which had a limited number of widths. Neue Frutiger has obliques, true to his own vision.

The Frutiger and Univers obliques were based on the Linotype metal version instead of the foundry version. They don't look bad, but the later versions with the correct italic angles and fewer compromises could be considered better if one wants to be picky.

James -

The obliques of Frutiger are technically inconsistent with the italics of Whitney, and I think it's worth noting when considering Frutiger as a close substitute for Whitney. No reflection on anyone's personal or professional taste this Ides of March.

Do you know our font "Norr", a narrow sans serif font?
http://www.editions205.fr/index.php?/fonderie/-norr/