Part 4: Research - Type foundries

Before I begin with this research I have to summarize my overall impression regarding typography. I found this chapter and exercises very challenging and demanding although it didn’t seemed so at the first sight. This is very delicate subject where I didn’t have much experience. As a web designer I have been in contact with typography but I was using mainly some proven and well known solutions which I saw on other websites or I was asking graphic designers for advice. I have never experimented too much because I was aware that bad typography is a powerful tool to destroy even the best design. Since typography is so widely used it is impossible to comprehend all for this few months, but I can put myself into some decent beginner’s level. I tackled into some basic elements such as letters and text adjustments, I also learned basics about magazine design and layouts, I met with Adobe InDesign, and learned to watch typefaces more carefully. I feel that I have so much to learn and so much things are left unexplored. I want to immerse myself into calligraphy which I appreciate so much and I already have some starter kit which I can’t wait to try. Creating typeface is still mystery to me, and I have no idea how and where to start it. My next task is to explore type foundries so I hope this will steer me in the right direction.

It is worthwhile to go back to history when William Caxton introduced the printing press. City of London became a centre of industry that was very important during Victorian era. Charles Reed a famous politician and businessman was owner of successful commercial type founding business. Education became available so it encouraged public interest in type founding for printed book and newspaper.

Adobe Type, a division of Adobe Sys Inc is highly recognizable in font technology and design. It is considered as established digital type foundry as well as a forerunner in developments of Post Script Type 1 and Type 3 font formats and Open Type technology. Its designs include Adobe Serifs, Adobe Sans Serifs, Adobe Display, and Adobe Scripts.

One of the world’s largest and most influential technology companies are Apple Inc. which is among others well known as a corporate type foundry. List of typefaces which are made by/for Apple are divided into serif (Apple Garamond, Espy Serif, Fancy, Apple Newton font, New York), sans serif (Charcoal, Chicago, Espy Sans, Geneva, Myriad, Simple, Skia, System), Monospaced (Monaco, Menlo), Scripts (Apple Casual, Apple Chancery, Venice) and others.

Letraset, an UK company mainly known as for manufacturing sheets of artwork elements which can be transferred to artwork being prepared. Its name refers to dry transferable lettering. This technique was very popular before computer era and I still have some of those sheets that contain letters and characters of different typefaces, dimensions, and styles along with various symbols.

Bitstream Inc.is type foundry based in Massachusetts that produces digital typefaces and claims to be the oldest such company. Its font library includes range of “classic” typefaces under different names and their own developed fonts that are widely used through CorelDraw software. They also created freeware Bitstream Vera family of fonts. One of their best-known font is Swiss 721 BT which is Helvetica clone, with condensed and rounded version which was digitally available since 1982. They designed font families such as Bitstream Charter, and Bitstream Cyberbit and created MyFonts, a digital font distriutor.

Monotype Imaging Holdings is a corporation specialized in typesetting and typeface design and it is owner of some of the most popular typeface design such as Helvetica, ITC Franklin Gothic, ITC Avant Garde, Optima, Times New Roman, Albertina, Albertus, and Albion. The company was found under the name of Lanston Monotype Machine Company back in 1887 when Tolbert Lanston patented the first hot metal typesetting machine and Monotype issued Modern Condensed, its first typeface. Today they own brands such as International Typeface Corporation (ITC), Mergenthaler Linotype Company, and Ascender Corporation.

Berthold Type Foundry was one of the most successful type foundries in the world that made transition from foundry type to cold type but didn’t survive the new digital era. This Berlin based company played a key role in introduction of new typefaces and development of typesetting machines. Berthold Type Foundry’s most celebrated typeface family is Akzidenz-Grotesk , Concorde and Imago, the foundry's revivals of classic faces such as Garamond, Caslon, Baskerville, and Bodoni. Another typefaces produces by Berthold are: Arena, Augustea, Bayer Type, Boulevard, Brudi Mediaeval, Champion, City, Concorde, Derby, El Greco, Herold, Solemnis. In 1993, the company officially ceased operation due the financial troubles. Berthold Types Ltd., a Chicago-based company, one of the companies that claimed to be the copyright owner of Berthold fonts, took over distribution of the Berthold digital type library and has released several new typefaces under the direction of Lange who worked as a type designer for Berthold Type Foundry since 1950.

Elsner+Flake is a trademark for German type foundry based in Hamburg. Established by experienced freelancers Veronica Elsner and Günther Flake who was involved in type design, typography and digitizing of fonts and logos, this company produced more than 2500 fonts.

Emigre is a digital type foundry established by husband-and-wife team Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko. During the late 1980’s and 1990’s they produced many cutting-edge typefaces and published Emigre Magazine. They were often criticized for rejecting standard design rules although Licko’s typeface Filosofia (based on Bodoni) was later gained recognition from designer Massimo Vignelli who was their fiercest opponent. Some of their most notable typefaces are: Cholla Slab, Dalliance, Dead History, Democratica, Exocet, Journal, Matrix, Modula, Mrs Eaves (based on Baskerville), Priori, Template Gothic, Vista Sans.

Font Bureau is a digital type foundry based on Boston, Massachusetts. The foundry is one of the leading designers of typefaces, specializing in type designs for magazine and newspaper publishers. The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, Esquire Magazine, Rolling Stone [1] and the Wall Street Journal were among Font Bureau's client list.

FontShop International is an international manufacturer of digital typefaces based in Berlin and one of the large type foundries that exist today. All the typefaces are published as part of the FontFont library. The library contains type designs by 160 type designers. The aim of FontFont is to offer typefaces by designers for designers. Besides type foundries such as Linotype, Monotype, and ITC, FontShop International is one of the most important publishers of digital typefaces. The main focus of a FontShop International is on FontFont a typeface library. Fonts published as FontFont always have name that uses prefix .FF. Famous fonts include FF Dax, FF DIN, FF Meta, FF Quadraat, FF Scala, FF Trixie, FF Beowolf, the world’s first digital handwriting fonts FF Erikrighthand and FF Justlefthand (FF Hands package). The library now consists of over different 700 font families. Designers also have opportunity to submit their own fonts. This company is also publisher of a FontBook, an independent compendium of digital typefaces. In 2011, FontShop International published the first digital version of the FontBook.

Hoefler & Frere-Jones is a famous type foundry based in New York. Beginning in the early 1990s, The Hoefler Type Foundry became a dominant voice in editorial typography, with important commissions for Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated, Harper's Bazaar and The New York Times. H&FJ remains heavily involved in editorial design, with recent commissions from Martha Stewart Living, The Wall Street Journal, Esquire, Wired and Condé Nast Portfolio as well as corporate typefaces created for Tiffany & Co., Nike, Inc., and Hewlett Packard. H&FJ works with a number of prominent institutions in New York. Hoefler & Frere-Jones creates type fonts for companies within New York such as for retail like Tiffany & co, then publications, corporations, and institutions. Some of the notable typefaces include Archer, Gotham, Hoefler Text, Requiem, Surveyor, Whitney.

Comicraft is a company which provides graphic design and lettering services to various (primarily comic book) companies. Comicraft's work and fonts have appeared in hundreds of products produced and distributed by all four of the major American comics companies: DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Dark Horse Comics and Image Comics; as well as for magazines and books produced by Active Images, a publishing sub company. They also worked on titles such as Ghost Rider 2099, Astro City and Generation X. Fonts are commercially available via ComicBookFonts.com.

Dalton Maag is an independent font foundry with offices in London, UK, and Porto Alegre, Brazil. It designs fonts for use in corporate identities, logos, and other text uses. It has a library of 22 retail fonts and offers custom font creation and modification services to its clients. Dalton Maag's typefaces have been designed for corporate clients. Their clients include Nokia, BMW, Vodafone, Ubuntu and Toyota. Notable typefaces include Pantograph, Barlow, Ubuntu typeface, Nokia Pure, Lexia, Aktiv Grotesk, Magpie and Elevon.

Scriptorium Fonts is an Austin, Texas based type foundry. It specializes in adaptations of antique fonts and fonts based on artistic hand lettering drawn from the work of famous artists and calligraphers like Alphons Mucha, William Morris, Willy Pogany, Arthur Rackham and Howard Pyle. Their catalog[1] currently includes over 600 fonts. Fonts include Abaddon, Hesperides, Buccaneer, Folkard, True Golden, Kelmscott, Ardenwood and Hendrix.

Typotheque is a type foundry and design studio from The Hague, Netherlands. Popular fonts include Fedra Sans and Fedra Serif font families, as well as Jigsaw. Typotheque specializes in creation of Latin and non-Latin fonts (Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic).

Source: Wikipedia