Marathon was originally designed by Rudolf Koch in 1931 for Schriftgiesserei Klingspor.

It is a roman with short ascenders and descenders. The serifs are small, but longer at the ends of the arms of E, F and L, M is rather splayed and is without top serifs, like M in other typefeaces designed by Rudolf Koch. The lowercase g has no link and an open tail, again like the g in other Koch types. U has the lower-case design. In the W the middle strokes cross, the lower case w has no middle serif. The figures are short-ranging.

Ute Harder from the Fachhochschule Hamburg had redesigned Marathon with the help and supervision of Professor Jovica Veljovic. She has added a book weight to offer more flexibility with this beautiful typeface.