Design started by Dick Dooijes in 1957. Introduced in January 1958 [Lane & Lommen 1998]. The first weights, regular and bold, were made available in 1958. [Reichardt 2011]. Extended to eight styles until c. 1964 [specimen]. To a limited degree, Mercator was available on the Intertype [Lane & Lommen 1998].

Mecanorma had a dry transfer version of the bold. [1973 catalog]

Laurenz Brunner started a digitization during his time at Rietveld Academie in 2005 [Brunner] (in use for their signage and stationery and elsewhere); by Ken Meier (Bold only) [Shoukas], by Daniella Spinat in 2007; and by Charles Mazé during his t]m year at KABK in 2009 [ARNT] (in use as Mercator Ammazzate in the book Come vanno le cose?). Rotterdam-based design studio Dogma (Bauke van der Laan and Theo van Beurden) digitized the Regular and Bold. The latter was used in the 2020 issue of Dd Magazine, then renamed to Koopman [Liekens], which is the Dutch translation of the Latin meractor.

Brunner’s Mercator ST was released with Source Type in June 2025, in three weights with upright and italic styles.

For a less direct follower, see Atlas Grotesk.