The Monotype name has been used by three distinct firms.
1. Lanston Monotype Cooperation, founded by Tolbert Lanston
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA), in 1887. In 1896 Lanston
patented the first hot metal typesetting machine, known as the
Monotype, see Monotype System
and Monotype
typefaces. Associated designers of note include Frederic W. Goudy and Sol
Hess. Licenses for the Lanston type library have been acquired
by P22 Type
Foundry in 2004, see Lanston
Type Company.
2. Monotype Corporation Limited, set up as a branch in London
(UK) in 1897 under the name Lanston Monotype Corporation Ltd. Later
an independent company based in Salfords. “Lanston” was dropped
from the name in May 1931. A.k.a. English Monotype. Key executives
included historian and adviser Stanley Morison, publicity manager Beatrice Warde,
engineering expert Frank Hinman Pierpont, and draughtsman
Fritz Stelzer. Associated designers include
Eric
Gill and Berthold Wolpe. Went into receivership in 1992.
Bailed out by Microsoft “in exchange
for allowing any or all of the entire MT library to be embeddable
in Microsoft products” [Griffin].
3. Monotype Imaging Inc. The successor to Monotype Corporation
Ltd. was acquired by Agfa-Compugraphic
in 1999 and renamed Agfa Monotype. Acquired ITC in
2000 and launched Fonts.com as
font distribution website in 2001. Acquired the Image
Club typeface library (EyeWire) in mid-2003. Acquired by TA Associates, a
private equity firm based in Boston in 2004, and incorporated as
Monotype Imaging. Bought back Ascender
Corp. in 2010, which had been formed by former employees in
2004, “taking with them quite a few major clients like Microsoft,
Google, Blackberry and a few car companies.” [Griffin]
Acquired by HGGC,
another private equity firm, in 2019. Monotype acquired Linotype GmbH (2006),
China
Type Design Ltd. (2006), Ascender
Corp. (2010), Bitstream Inc. incl. the
major font distributor MyFonts (2012), distribution rights
to typefaces by Stone
Type Foundry (Dec.
2013) and The
Foundry (Jan.
2014), the other major font distributor FontShop incl. the FontFont library (2014),
Fontsmith (2020),
URW (2020), Hoefler &
Co. (Sep.
2021), the Berthold library
(Aug.
2022), Milieu
Grotesque and typefaces by Paulo
Goode (March
2023), typefaces More…
The Monotype name has been used by three distinct firms.
1. Lanston Monotype Cooperation, founded by Tolbert Lanston in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA), in 1887. In 1896 Lanston patented the first hot metal typesetting machine, known as the Monotype, see Monotype System and Monotype typefaces. Associated designers of note include Frederic W. Goudy and Sol Hess. Licenses for the Lanston type library have been acquired by P22 Type Foundry in 2004, see Lanston Type Company.
2. Monotype Corporation Limited, set up as a branch in London (UK) in 1897 under the name Lanston Monotype Corporation Ltd. Later an independent company based in Salfords. “Lanston” was dropped from the name in May 1931. A.k.a. English Monotype. Key executives included historian and adviser Stanley Morison, publicity manager Beatrice Warde, engineering expert Frank Hinman Pierpont, and draughtsman Fritz Stelzer. Associated designers include Eric Gill and Berthold Wolpe. Went into receivership in 1992. Bailed out by Microsoft “in exchange for allowing any or all of the entire MT library to be embeddable in Microsoft products” [Griffin].
3. Monotype Imaging Inc. The successor to Monotype Corporation Ltd. was acquired by Agfa-Compugraphic in 1999 and renamed Agfa Monotype. Acquired ITC in 2000 and launched Fonts.com as font distribution website in 2001. Acquired the Image Club typeface library (EyeWire) in mid-2003. Acquired by TA Associates, a private equity firm based in Boston in 2004, and incorporated as Monotype Imaging. Bought back Ascender Corp. in 2010, which had been formed by former employees in 2004, “taking with them quite a few major clients like Microsoft, Google, Blackberry and a few car companies.” [Griffin] Acquired by HGGC, another private equity firm, in 2019. Monotype acquired Linotype GmbH (2006), China Type Design Ltd. (2006), Ascender Corp. (2010), Bitstream Inc. incl. the major font distributor MyFonts (2012), distribution rights to typefaces by Stone Type Foundry (Dec. 2013) and The Foundry (Jan. 2014), the other major font distributor FontShop incl. the FontFont library (2014), Fontsmith (2020), URW (2020), Hoefler & Co. (Sep. 2021), the Berthold library (Aug. 2022), Milieu Grotesque and typefaces by Paulo Goode (March 2023), typefaces by David Berlow of Font Bureau (May 2023), Fontworks (July 2023), Colophon (Dec. 2023), typefaces from Sharp Type (Feb. 2024), and typefaces by DSType and Kastelov (April 2024).
