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Monotype Imaging Holdings Inc., founded as Lanston Monotype Machine Company in 1887 in
Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...
by
Tolbert Lanston Tolbert Lanston (February 3, 1844 – February 18, 1913) was the American founder of Monotype, inventing a mechanical typesetting system patented in 1887 and the first hot metal typesetter a few years later. Life Tolbert Lanston was born into ...
, is an American (historically Anglo-American) company that specializes in digital
typesetting Typesetting is the composition of text by means of arranging physical ''type'' (or ''sort'') in mechanical systems or '' glyphs'' in digital systems representing '' characters'' (letters and other symbols).Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random ...
and
typeface A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are thousands o ...
design for use with
consumer electronics Consumer electronics or home electronics are electronic ( analog or digital) equipment intended for everyday use, typically in private homes. Consumer electronics include devices used for entertainment, communications and recreation. Usuall ...
devices. Incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in
Woburn, Massachusetts Woburn ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 40,876 at the 2020 census. Woburn is located north of Boston. Woburn uses Massachusetts' mayor-council form of government, in which an elected mayor is ...
, the company has been responsible for many developments in
printing Printing is a process for mass reproducing text and images using a master form or template. The earliest non-paper products involving printing include cylinder seals and objects such as the Cyrus Cylinder and the Cylinders of Nabonidus. The ...
technology—in particular the Monotype machine, which was a fully mechanical hotmetal typesetter, that produced texts automatically, all single type. Monotype was involved in the design and production of many typefaces in the 20th century. Monotype developed many of the most widely used typeface designs, including Times New Roman,
Gill Sans Gill Sans is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Eric Gill and released by the British branch of Monotype from 1928 onwards. Gill Sans is based on Edward Johnston's 1916 "Underground Alphabet", the corporate font of London Undergro ...
,
Arial Arial (also called Arial MT) is a sans-serif typeface and set of computer fonts in the neo-grotesque style. Fonts from the Arial family are included with all versions of Microsoft Windows from Windows 3.1 on, some other Microsoft software ...
, Bembo and Albertus. Via acquisitions including
Linotype GmbH The Mergenthaler Linotype Company is a corporation founded in the United States in 1886 to market the Linotype machine (), a system to cast metal type in lines (linecaster) invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler. It became the world's leading manufactur ...
, International Typeface Corporation,
Bitstream A bitstream (or bit stream), also known as binary sequence, is a sequence of bits. A bytestream is a sequence of bytes. Typically, each byte is an 8-bit quantity, and so the term octet stream is sometimes used interchangeably. An octet may ...
,
FontShop FontShop International was an international manufacturer of digital typefaces (fonts), based in Berlin. It was one of the largest digital type foundries. The ''FontFont'' library of fonts contains designs by 160 type designers, among them reno ...
,
URW URW may refer to: *Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield * Union of Russian Workers * UnReal World, survival video game *Unrestricted Warfare, military strategy * Urawa Station, JR East station code * URW++ a typeface foundry * Sop language Sob (also Sob, Us ...
and Hoefler & Co., the company has gained the rights to major font families including Helvetica, ITC Franklin Gothic, Optima,
ITC Avant Garde ITC Avant Garde Gothic is a geometric sans serif font family based on the logo font used in the ''Avant Garde'' magazine. Herb Lubalin devised the logo concept and its companion headline typeface, and then he and Tom Carnase, a partner in Lubalin ...
, Palatino, FF DIN and Gotham. It also owns MyFonts, used by many independent font design studios. The company is owned by HGGC, a private equity firm.


History


Monotype System

The Lanston Monotype Machine Company was founded by
Tolbert Lanston Tolbert Lanston (February 3, 1844 – February 18, 1913) was the American founder of Monotype, inventing a mechanical typesetting system patented in 1887 and the first hot metal typesetter a few years later. Life Tolbert Lanston was born into ...
in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...
, in 1887. Lanston had a patented mechanical method of punching out metal types from cold strips of metal which were set (hence ''typesetting'') into a
matrix Matrix most commonly refers to: * ''The Matrix'' (franchise), an American media franchise ** '' The Matrix'', a 1999 science-fiction action film ** "The Matrix", a fictional setting, a virtual reality environment, within ''The Matrix'' (franchi ...
for the
printing press A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. It marked a dramatic improvement on earlier printing methods in which the ...
. In 1896 Lanston patented the first
hot metal typesetting In printing and typography, hot metal typesetting (also called mechanical typesetting, hot lead typesetting, hot metal, and hot type) is a technology for typesetting text in letterpress printing. This method injects molten type metal into a ...
machine and Monotype issued Modern Condensed, its first
typeface A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are thousands o ...
. The licenses for the Lanston type library have been acquired by P22, a digital
type foundry A type foundry is a company that designs or distributes typefaces. Before digital typography, type foundries manufactured and sold metal and wood typefaces for hand typesetting, and matrices for line-casting machines like the Linotype and M ...
based in Buffalo, New York. In a search for funding, the company set up a branch in
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
around 1897 under the name Lanston Monotype Corporation Ltd, generally known as the Monotype Corporation. In 1899 a new factory was built in
Salfords Salfords ) is a village in the borough of Reigate and Banstead in Surrey, England. It lies approximately south of Redhill on the A23 London to Brighton road. The village is within the civil parish of Salfords and Sidlow which covers a popu ...
near Redhill in
Surrey Surrey () is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant ur ...
where it has been located for over a century. The company was of sufficient size to justify the construction of its own
Salfords railway station Salfords railway station serves the village of Salfords in Surrey, England. The station is sometimes shown as Salfords (Surrey) in timetables to differentiate it from the two stations in Salford, Greater Manchester. It is on the Brighton Main L ...
. The Monotype machine worked by casting letters from "hot metal" (molten metal) as pieces of type. Thus spelling mistakes could be corrected by adding or removing individual letters. This was particularly useful for "quality" printing - such as books. In contrast, the Linotype machine—a direct competitor—formed a complete line of type in one bar. Editing these required replacing an entire line (and if the replacement ran onto another line, the rest of the paragraph). But Linotype slugs were easier to handle if moving a complete section of text around a page. This was more useful for "quick" printing - such as newspapers. The typesetting machines were continually improved in the early years of the 20th century, with a
typewriter A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectivel ...
style
keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Mu ...
for entering the type being introduced in 1906. This arrangement addressed the need to vary the space between words so that all lines were the same length. The keyboard operator types the copy, each key punching holes in a roll of paper tape that will control the separate caster. A drum on the keyboard indicates to the operator the space required for each line. This information is also punched in the paper. Before fitting the tape to the caster it is turned over so that the first holes read on each line set the width of the variable space. The subsequent holes determine the position of a frame, or die case, that holds the set of matrices for the face being used. Each matrix is a rectangle of bronze recessed with the shape of the letter. Once the matrix is positioned over the mould that forms the body of the type being cast, molten type metal is injected. To promote its image, the company ran a magazine, the ''Monotype Recorder'', over most of the twentieth century, and also ran a compositor (typesetter operator) training school in London. In 1936, the company was floated on the
London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...
and became the Monotype Corporation Ltd. Board members of the company included future Prime Minister
Harold Macmillan Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986) was a British Conservative statesman and politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Caricatured as " Supermac", ...
, Vice-Chairman, and other businessmen connected to publishing.


Typefounding

Monotype's role in design history is not merely due to their supply of printing equipment but due to their commissioning of many of the most important typefaces of the twentieth century. The company's first face, issued in 1896 was a rather generic design, now named ''Modern'', influenced by Bodoni and Scotch Roman designs. However, by the 1920s the company's British branch was well known for commissioning popular, historically influenced designs that revived some of the best typefaces of the past, with particular attention to the early period of printing from the Renaissance to the late eighteenth century. This series of releases was a major part of the typographic renaissance of the period, an expansion of the arts and crafts movement interest in printing into the more workaday world of general-purpose printing. Key executives of the company in this period included historian and adviser Stanley Morison, publicity manager
Beatrice Warde Beatrice Lamberton Warde (September 20, 1900 – September 16, 1969, née Beatrice Becker) was a twentieth-century writer and scholar of typography. As a marketing manager for the British Monotype Corporation, she was influential in the deve ...
, engineering expert
Frank Hinman Pierpont Frank Hinman Pierpont (born 1860, New Haven, Connecticut – died 11 February 1937, England) was an American engineer and typeface designer. He worked primarily in England for the Monotype Corporation of Britain. After training as a mechani ...
and draughtsman Fritz Stelzer (the latter two both recruited from the German printing industry, although Pierpont was American), under managing director William Isaac Burch, who led the company from 1924 to 1942. Despite tensions within the company, particularly between the historically minded faction of Morison and Warde and Pierpont in Salfords, notable typefaces commissioned included
Gill Sans Gill Sans is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Eric Gill and released by the British branch of Monotype from 1928 onwards. Gill Sans is based on Edward Johnston's 1916 "Underground Alphabet", the corporate font of London Undergro ...
, Times New Roman and Perpetua, and the company maintained high standards of development allowing it to produce designs with good spacing, careful adaptation of the same basic design to different sizes and even color on the page, essential qualities for balanced body text. Historian James Mosley, who worked closely with Monotype in the 1950s and onwards, has commented:
The English Monotype Corporation of the interwar years looks in retrospect rather like one of the great public bodies of the period, for example the
British Broadcasting Corporation #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
or London Transport... benevolent monopolies ruled by autocrats who revelled in the role of patron of the arts on a scale exceeding that of Italian Renaissance princes.

Monotype enjoyed, in Britain at least, something approaching a monopoly in book and better-quality magazine typesetting.. .Monotype exploited the glamor of its new typefaces... with brilliant publicity, for which Morison and his devoted young American recruit Beatrice Warde were partly responsible. The American branch lagged behind the British in artistic reputation. Their designs are now often rather obscure, since (unlike products from the British branch) few have been made widely available through bundling with
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...
products. The company employed Frederic Goudy on several serif font projects which were well received at the time, and on staff type designer
Sol Hess Sol Hess (born 1886, Philadelphia, PA – d. 1953) was an American typeface designer. After a three-year scholarship course at Pennsylvania Museum School of Industrial Design, he began at Lanston Monotype in 1902, rising to typographic man ...
, who created the geometric sans-serif Twentieth Century as a competitor to the German Futura.


Decline

Monotype entered a decline from the 1960s onwards. This was caused by the reduction in use of hot metal typesetting and replacement with
phototypesetting Phototypesetting is a method of setting type. It uses photography to make columns of type on a scroll of photographic paper. It has been made obsolete by the popularity of the personal computer and desktop publishing (digital typesetting). T ...
and
lithography Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...
in mass-market printing. This offered considerable efficiencies, such as no need to print books from solid metal type, quicker setting of type and a reduced number of operators needed. It also promised a more diverse and exciting range of fonts than that possible with hot metal, where it is necessary to own life-size matrices for every size of every font to be used. Monotype made the transition to cold type and began to market its own "Monophoto" phototypesetting systems, but these suffered from problems. Its first devices were heavily based on hot metal machinery, with glass pictures of characters which would be reproduced on photographic paper replacing the matrices used to cast metal type. While this reduced the need for retraining, the resulting devices often set type slowly compared to legacy-free next-generation devices from providers such as Photon and
Compugraphic Compugraphic Corporation, commonly called cg, was an American producer of typesetting systems and phototypesetting equipment, based in Wilmington, Massachusetts, just a few miles from where it was founded. This company is distinct from Compugraph ...
, and were often more expensive. Its devices were slow to incorporate use of electronics, and while its type library was of high quality, changing tastes and the development of other companies' libraries competed with this. Its type library was also easily pirated, since fonts have only limited copyright protection. The company was eventually split into three divisions: Monotype International, which manufactured spinning mirror switched laser beam phototypesetters; Monotype Limited, which continued the hot metal machines; and Monotype Typography, which designed and sold typefaces. A research and development department was set up in
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
to isolate it from day to day production issues. Monotype in the UK continued to enjoy prestige through the 1970s with the patronage of major British printers such as the university presses at Oxford and Cambridge; it also enjoyed some success with its Lasercomp laser-based typesetting system from the 1970s onwards, developed by the Cambridge research group. However, new technology and finally publishing software such as
Quark XPress QuarkXPress is a desktop publishing software for creating and editing complex page layouts in a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) environment. It runs on macOS and Windows. It was first released by Quark, Inc. in 1987 and is still owned and ...
and
Aldus PageMaker Adobe PageMaker (formerly Aldus) is a discontinued desktop publishing computer program introduced in 1985 by the Aldus Corporation on the Apple Macintosh. The combination of the Macintosh's graphical user interface, PageMaker publishing software, ...
running on general-purpose computers ate away at its competitiveness in the market of complete typesetting solutions by the 1990s. Monotype, however, has continued in business, for instance marketing typeface designs to third-party buyers, computing companies such as Microsoft (many fonts on Microsoft computers in particular are Monotype-designed) and companies and organisations such as London Transport and the UK parliament requiring custom digital typefaces. Much of its metal type equipment and archives were donated to the Type Museum collection in London; other materials are held at St Bride Library. The history and decline of the hot metal American Lanston Monotype Corporation is described in full detail by Richard L. Hopkins, in ''Tolbert Lanston and the Monotype. The origin of digital Typesetting''. In 2004, P22 type foundry bought the "Lanston Type Co." from Gerald Giampa. The history of the English brand can be found in: Judy Slinn, Sebastian Carter, Richard Southall: ''The History of the Monotype Corporation'', Vanbrugh Press & Printing historical Society, Woodstock, London, 2014,


Consolidation, reorganization, and expansion

In 1992 The Monotype Corporation Ltd. appointed Administrative Receivers on 5 March and four days later Monotype Typography Ltd. was established. Cromas Holdings, an investment company based in Switzerland, bought the Monotype Corporation Ltd. and Monotype Inc. (excluding Monotype Typography) and five other direct subsidiary companies in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Singapore. Monotype Systems Ltd. was the adopted name for the new organization with Peter Purdy as Chairman, the name Monotype was under license from Monotype Typography Ltd which retained the trademark Monotype. Monotype Systems Ltd. focused on selling
pre-press Prepress is the term used in the Printing and Publishing industries for the processes and procedures that occur between the creation of a print layout and the final printing. The prepress process includes the preparation of artwork for press, media ...
software and hardware,
raster image processor A raster image processor (RIP) is a component used in a printing system which produces a raster image also known as a bitmap. Such a bitmap is used by a later stage of the printing system to produce the printed output. The input may be a page d ...
s and workflow. Cromas Holdings reorganized its publishing interests with the formation of the International Publishing Asset Holding Ltd. effectively controlling Monotype Systems Ltd., QED Technology Ltd., and GB Techniques Ltd. The company acquired Berthold Communications; the UK subsidiary of the German composing equipment supplier. In June 2002, Monotype Systems Limited was re-branded, IPA Systems Limited, as this marked the end of the existing trademark licence with Monotype Corporation. In the US Monotype Inc became alfaQuest Technologies Limited. Both companies still sell pre-press software and hardware. In 1999, Agfa-Compugraphic acquired the company, which was renamed Agfa Monotype. In late 2004, after six years under the Agfa Corporation, the Monotype assets were acquired by TA Associates, a private equity investment firm based in
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
. The company was incorporated as Monotype Imaging, with a focus on the company's traditional core competencies of typography and professional printing. Monotype was the first company to produce a digital version of the handwritten Persian script, Persian Nasta'liq. A Chinese "keyboard" was developed to typeset Chinese characters; it consisted of a book with a stylus. As the pages were turned, the page number was detected electrically and this was combined with the position of the character selected by the stylus on a large grid. In 2003, the company launched Fontwise, the first software to audit desktops for licensed and unlicensed (not necessarily illegal) fonts. On 2 October 2006, the company acquired Linotype GmbH, a subsidiary of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen. On 18 September 2006, the company acquired China Type Design Limited, a typeface design and production company based in Hong Kong. CTDL was responsible for developing
Microsoft JhengHei Microsoft JhengHei (微軟正黑體) is a sans-serif typeface included in Windows Vista and later and Microsoft Office 2007. It follows the Standard Form of National Characters prescribed by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of China ( T ...
, the default traditional Chinese interface font for
Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, which was released five years before, at the time being the longest time span between successive releases of ...
. The deal also secured an exclusive relationship with Creative Calligraphy Center (CCC), a font production company in
Zhuhai Zhuhai (, ; Yale: ''Jyūhói''), also known as Chuhai is a prefecture-level city located on the west bank of Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern Guangdong province, People's Republic of China, on the southeastern edge of P ...
, China, with 30 production specialists. On 11 December 2009, the company acquired Planetweb, a developer specialized in applications and development tools for embedded devices. On 8 December 2010, the company acquired
Ascender Corporation Ascender Corporation was a digital typeface foundry and software development company located in the Chicago suburb of Elk Grove Village, Illinois in the United States. It was founded in 2004 by a team of software developers, typographers, and font ...
, a provider of fonts and font technologies used in computers, mobile devices, consumer electronics and software products. In March 2012, the company acquired
Bitstream Inc. Bitstream Inc. was a type foundry that produced digital typefaces. It was founded in 1981 by Matthew Carter and Mike Parker among others. It was located in Marlborough, Massachusetts. The font business, including MyFonts, was acquired by Mono ...
, a digital font retailer. The deal also gave Monotype ownership of the MyFonts font sale website used by many independent designers and its WhatTheFont recognition service. On 15 July 2014, the company acquired
FontShop FontShop International was an international manufacturer of digital typefaces (fonts), based in Berlin. It was one of the largest digital type foundries. The ''FontFont'' library of fonts contains designs by 160 type designers, among them reno ...
, the last large independent digital font retailer. In October 2019 Monotype changed ownership to HGGC, a private equity firm. A few months later, on January 27, 2020, the company added FontSmith, an independent
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
foundry, to its font catalog. On May 18, 2020, Monotype made another major expansion by purchasing URW Type Foundry from Global Graphics plc. In late 2021 it continued its expansion by acquiring iconic New York company Hoefler & Co. (created by
Jonathan Hoefler Jonathan Hoefler (; born August 22, 1970) is an American typeface designer. Hoefler founded the Hoefler Type Foundry in 1989, a type foundry in New York. Early life Jonathan Hoefler was born on August 22, 1970, in New York City to Doreen Be ...
in 1989), thus increasing its library with well-known fonts such as Gotham, Knockout, Mercury, Sentinel, Chronicle, Decimal, and Archer.


Typefaces


See also

* Linotype typesetting machine * Monotype typefaces, hot metal typefaces * Monotype System


References


Bibliography

*


Further reading

*
Lanston Monotype Co. history
{{Woburn, Massachusetts 1887 establishments in Pennsylvania 1999 mergers and acquisitions 2004 mergers and acquisitions Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq Design companies established in 1887 Letterpress font foundries of the United States Manufacturing companies established in 1887 Woburn, Massachusetts Technology companies established in 1887 American companies established in 1887