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A type foundry is a
company A company, abbreviated as co., is a legal entity representing an association of people, whether natural, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common purpose and unite to achieve specific, declared go ...
that designs or distributes typefaces. Before
digital typography Desktop publishing (DTP) is the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal ("desktop") computer. It was first used almost exclusively for print publications, but now it also assists in the creation of various forms of online c ...
, type foundries manufactured and sold
metal A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typica ...
and wood typefaces for hand
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 matrices for line-casting machines like the Linotype and Monotype, for letterpress printers. Today's digital type foundries accumulate and distribute typefaces (typically as digitized fonts) created by
type designer Type design is the art and process of designing typefaces. This involves drawing each letterform using a consistent style. The basic concepts and design variables are described below. A typeface differs from other modes of graphic production su ...
s, who may either be
freelancer ''Freelance'' (sometimes spelled ''free-lance'' or ''free lance''), ''freelancer'', or ''freelance worker'', are terms commonly used for a person who is self-employed and not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Freelance w ...
s operating their own independent foundry, or employed by a foundry. Type foundries may also provide custom type design services.


England

In England, type foundries began in 1476, when William Caxton introduced the printing press, importing at least some of the type that he used in printing. Until
William Caslon William Caslon I (1692/1693 – 23 January 1766), also known as William Caslon the Elder,Oxford Dictionary of National Biography was an English typefounder. The distinction and legibility of his type secured him the patronage of the leading ...
(1692–1766), however, English type generally had a poor reputation with the best type imported from Holland. Only after Caslon had established his
Caslon foundry The Caslon type foundry was a type foundry in London which cast and sold metal type. It was founded by the punchcutter and typefounder William Caslon I, probably in 1720. For most of its history it was based at Chiswell Street, Islington, wa ...
in
Chiswell Street Chiswell Street is in Islington, London, England. Historic England have seven entries for listed buildings in Chiswell Street. Location The street, in St Luke's, Islington, runs east-west and forms part of the B100 road. At the west end it be ...
, did the City of London become a major centre for the industry, until the end of the 20th century when famous metal-based printing districts such as Fleet Street came to the close of their era. The industry was particularly important in
Victorian times In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian ...
, when education became available to all due to the new school boards, and firms such as Charles Reed & Sons, the printer and type founders were in their heyday. The St Bride Printing Library in the City of London encourages wider public interest in the history of type founding for the printed book and newspaper.


Modern corporate type foundries

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Adobe Type Adobe ( ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for ''mudbrick''. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of e ...
*
Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...
* Google LLC * Letraset * Monotype Imaging **
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 subsidiary of Monotype Imaging **
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 ...
a subsidiary of Monotype Imaging **
FontFont 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 ...
a subsidiary of Monotype Imaging, Located in Germany ** International Typeface Corporation (ITC) a subsidiary of Monotype Imaging **
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 ...
a subsidiary of Monotype Imaging, Located in Germany **
URW Type Foundry URW Type Foundry GmbH (formerly URW++ Design & Development GmbH) is a type foundry based in Hamburg, Germany. The foundry has its own library with more than 500 font families. The company specializes in customized corporate typefaces and the ...
a subsidiary of Monotype Imaging, Located in Germany ** Hoefler & Co. (H&Co) a subsidiary of Monotype Imaging, located in New York City


Large form type foundries

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Berthold Type Foundry H. Berthold AG was one of the largest and most successful type foundries in the world for most of the modern typographic era, making the transition from foundry type to cold type successfully and only coming to dissolution in the digital type era. ...
* Elsner+Flake * Emigre * Font Bureau *
House Industries House Industries is a type foundry and design studio based in Yorklyn, Delaware. The company was created in the 1990s in Wilmington, Delaware by co-founders Andy Cruz and Rich Roat. The company is best known for its typeface creations, which hav ...
* Neufville Typefoundry ( Fundición Tipográfica Neufville)


Notable independent type foundries

* Blambot * Chank Diesel *
Comicraft Comicraft is a company which provides graphic design and lettering services to various (primarily comic book) companies. History The company was founded by Richard Starkings in 1992. Starkings had been working for Marvel UK for five years, but ...
*
Dalton Maag Dalton Maag is an independent font foundry with offices in London, UK, and São Paulo, Brazil. It designs fonts for use in corporate identities, logos, and other text uses. Dalton Maag has a library of 30 retail fonts as of 2016 and offers custo ...
* Darden Studio * Larabie Fonts/Typodermic *
Mark Simonson Mark Simonson (born 1955) is an American independent type designer who works in St. Paul, Minnesota. Career Simonson has described his typefaces as often being inspired by lettering styles of the past, such as the graphic design of the 1970s, A ...
Studio *
Parachute A parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag or, in a ram-air parachute, aerodynamic lift. A major application is to support people, for recreation or as a safety device for aviators, wh ...
* P22 Type Foundry * Sandoll Communications * Scriptorium Fonts * Typofonderie / formerly * Typotheque


Specialty type foundries


The League of Moveable Type
— The first
open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
type foundry


Defunct (historic) type foundries

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American Type Founders American Type Founders (ATF) Co. was a business trust created in 1892 by the merger of 23 type foundries, representing about 85% of all type manufactured in the United States. De Vinne, Theodore Low, ''The Practice of Typography,'' Century Com ...
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Barnhart Brothers & Spindler Barnhart Brothers & Spindler Type Foundry was an American typeface company founded as the Great Western Type Foundry in 1873. It became Barnhart Brothers & Spindler ten years later. It was a successful foundry known for innovative type design an ...
* Bauer Type *
Binny & Ronaldson Binny & Ronaldson established the first permanent type foundry in the United States. Founded in Philadelphia in 1796 by the Scot Archibald Binny (1762/3–1838) and James Ronaldson (1769–1841). History Archibald Binny, of Scotland, emigrated ...
*
Caslon Type Foundry The Caslon type foundry was a type foundry in London which cast and sold metal type. It was founded by the punchcutter and typefounder William Caslon I, probably in 1720. For most of its history it was based at Chiswell Street, Islington, was the ...
* Charles Reed & Sons * Deberny & Peignot * Grafotechna *
Inland Type Foundry The Inland Type Foundry was an American type foundry established in 1894 in Saint Louis, Missouri and later with branch offices in Chicago and New York City. Although it was founded to compete directly with the "type trust" (American Type Fo ...
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Louis Pouchée Louis John Pouchée (1782 – 15 March 1845), was a London type founder and entrepreneur. Career Pouchée is first recorded as the proprietor of Alamode Beef and Veal House (1811–1812) and Pouchée & Co Coal Merchants (1811–22), both in Ho ...
*
Stephenson Blake Stephenson Blake is an engineering company based in Sheffield, England. The company was active from the early 19th century as a type founder, remaining until the 1990s as the last active type foundry in Britain, since when it has diversified in ...
* VEB Typoart


References


External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Type Foundry Publishing