Monotype Imaging Holdings is a
DelawareDelaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...
corporationA corporation is created under the laws of a state as a separate legal entity that has privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter...
based in
Woburn, MassachusettsWoburn is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USA. The population was 38,120 at the 2010 census. Woburn is located north of Boston, Massachusetts, and just south of the intersection of I-93 and I-95.- History :...
and specializing in
typesettingTypesetting is the composition of text by means of types.Typesetting requires the prior process of designing a font and storing it in some manner...
and
typefaceIn typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....
design (
type foundryA type foundry is a company that designs or distributes typefaces. Originally, type foundries manufactured and sold metal and wood typefaces and matrices for line-casting machines like the Linotype and Monotype machines designed to be printed on letterpress printers...
) as well as text and imaging solutions for use with
consumer electronicsConsumer electronics are electronic equipment intended for everyday use, most often in entertainment, communications and office productivity. Radio broadcasting in the early 20th century brought the first major consumer product, the broadcast receiver...
devices. Monotype Imaging Holdings is the owner of Monotype Imaging Inc., Linotype,
International Typeface CorporationThe International Typeface Corporation was a type manufacturer founded in New York in 1970 by Aaron Burns, Herb Lubalin, and Edward Rondthaler. The company was one of the world's first type foundries to have no history in the production of metal type...
, among others. Monotype Imaging Holdings and its predecessors and subsidiaries have been responsible for many developments in
printingPrinting is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing....
technology—in particular the Monotype machine, which was the first fully mechanical typesetter, and the
Linotype machineThe Linotype typesetting machine is a "line casting" machine used in printing. The name of the machine comes from the fact that it produces an entire line of metal type at once, hence a line-o'-type, a significant improvement over manual typesetting....
—and the design and production of typefaces in the 19th and 20th centuries. Monotype Imaging’s subsidiaries are the owners of some of the most widely used typeface designs, including
HelveticaHelvetica is a widely used sans-serif typeface developed in 1957 by Swiss typeface designer Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann.-Visual distinctive characteristics:Characteristics of this typeface are:lower case:square dot over the letter i....
, ITC Franklin Gothic,
ITC Avant GardeITC Avant Garde Gothic is a font family based on the logo font used in the Avant Garde magazine. Herb Lubalin devised the logo concept and its companion headline typeface, then he and Tom Carnase, a partner in Lubalin's design firm, worked together to transform the idea into a full-fledged...
,
OptimaOptima is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf between 1952 and 1955 for the D. Stempel AG foundry, Frankfurt, Germany.-Characteristics:...
, and Times New Roman.
History
The
Lanston Monotype Machine Company was founded by
Tolbert LanstonTolbert Lanston was the American founder of Monotype, inventing a mechanical typesetting system patented in 1887 and the first hot metal typesetter a few years later.-His life:...
in Washington D.C. 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
matrixIn hot metal typesetting, a matrix is a mold for casting a letter, known as a sort, used in letterpress printing....
for the
printing pressA printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...
. In 1896 Lanston patented the first
hot metal typesettingIn printing and typography, hot metal typesetting refers to 19th-century technologies for typesetting text in letterpress printing. This method injects molten type metal into a mold that has the shape of one or more glyphs...
machine and Monotype issued Modern Condensed, its first
typefaceIn typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....
. The licenses for the Lanston type library have been acquired by
P22P22 type foundry is a digital type foundry from Buffalo, New York, that develops and markets typefaces for the Macintosh and Windows platforms. The name P22 has no specific significance and was used prior to the type foundry as a label for various art projects including an ambitious mail art...
, a digital
type foundryA type foundry is a company that designs or distributes typefaces. Originally, type foundries manufactured and sold metal and wood typefaces and matrices for line-casting machines like the Linotype and Monotype machines designed to be printed on letterpress printers...
based in
BuffaloBuffalo is the second most populous city in the state of New York, after New York City. Located in Western New York on the eastern shores of Lake Erie and at the head of the Niagara River across from Fort Erie, Ontario, Buffalo is the seat of Erie County and the principal city of the...
, New York.
In a search for funding, the company set up a branch in
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1897 under the name
Lanston Monotype Corporation Ltd. In 1899 a new factory was built in
SalfordsSalfords is a village in the borough of Reigate and Banstead in Surrey, England. It lies approximately 3 miles or 5 km south of Redhill on the A23 London to Brighton road. It was the original UK home of the Monotype Corporation and Salfords railway station was originally built to service the...
near
RedhillRedhill is a town in the borough of Reigate and Banstead, Surrey, England and is part of the London commuter belt. Redhill and the adjacent town of Reigate form a single urban area.-History:...
in
SurreySurrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
where it has been located for over a century. The company was of sufficient size to justify the construction of its own railway station.
The original Monotype machine used "hot metal" to form individual letters. 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 machineThe Linotype typesetting machine is a "line casting" machine used in printing. The name of the machine comes from the fact that it produces an entire line of metal type at once, hence a line-o'-type, a significant improvement over manual typesetting....
formed a complete line of type in one bar. Editing these required replacing an entire line (and if the replacement ran on to 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 twentieth century, with a
typewriterA typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Typically one character is printed per keypress, and the machine prints the characters by making ink impressions of type elements similar to the pieces...
style keyboard 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 copper recessed with the shape of the letter. Once the matrix is positioned over the mould that forms the rest of the piece of type being cast, molten type metal is injected.
Many of the typefaces familiar today were introduced during the first half of the twentieth century, such as
Times New Roman and
PerpetuaPerpetua is a typeface that was designed by English sculptor and typeface designer Eric Gill .Though not designed in the historical period of transitional type , Perpetua can be classified with transitional typefaces because of characteristics such as high stroke...
. The program of revivals of old typefaces and the commissioning of new ones was a major part of the typographic renaissance of the period. For much of that century the company ran a compositor (typesetter operator) training school in London.
In 1936 the company was floated on the
London Stock ExchangeThe London Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in the City of London within the United Kingdom. , the Exchange had a market capitalisation of US$3.7495 trillion, making it the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world by this measurement...
and became the
Monotype Corporation Ltd. Later the company was 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
CambridgeThe city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
to isolate it from day to day production issues. The produced the first Laser typesetter the
Monotype Lasercomp.
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 software and hardware, Raster image processor RIPs 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.
Monotype Systems Ltd. purchased 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 Monotype Corporation, which was renamed
Agfa Monotype. In late 2004, after six years under the Agfa Corporation, the Monotype assets were acquired by
TA AssociatesTA Associates, founded in 1968, is one of the oldest private equity firms in the United States. The firm employs a hybrid strategy making growth capital investments in developing companies and acquiring mature companies through leveraged buyout and recapitalization transactions...
, a private equity investment firm based in
BostonBoston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
. 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' is one of the main script styles used in writing the Perso-Arabic script, and traditionally the predominant style in Persian calligraphy. It was developed in Iran in the 8th and 9th centuries...
. 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 early 2000, Monotype launched Fontwise, the first software to audit desktops for licensed and unlicensed (not necessarily illegal) fonts.
On 2 October 2006, Monotype Imaging Inc. announced that it acquired Linotype GmbH, a subsidiary of Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG.
On 18 September 2006, Monotype Imaging Inc. announced that it acquired China Type Design Limited, a typeface design and production company based in Hong Kong. CTDL was responsible for developing
Microsoft JhengHeiMicrosoft JhengHei 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 and is intended to be used in Traditional Chinese language environments...
, the default traditional Chinese interface font for
Windows VistaWindows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
. The deal also secured an exclusive relationship with Creative Calligraphy Center (CCC), a font production company in
ZhuhaiZhuhai is a prefecture-level city on the southern coast of Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in the Pearl River Delta, Zhuhai borders Jiangmen to the northwest, Zhongshan to the north, and Macau to the south. Zhuhai was one of the original Special Economic Zones...
, China, with 30 production specialists.
On 11 December 2009, Monotype Imaging Inc. announced that it acquired Planetweb, Inc., a developer specialized in applications and development tools for embedded devices.
On 8 December 2010, Monotype Imaging announced the acquisition of Ascender Corp., a provider of fonts and font technologies used in computers, mobile devices, consumer electronics and software products.
Typefaces
- Albertina, (Chris Brand, 1966)
- Albertus
Albertus is a glyphic, serif typeface designed by Berthold Wolpe in the period 1932 to 1940 for the Monotype Corporation type foundry. Wolpe named the font after Albertus Magnus, the thirteenth-century German philosopher and theologian....
, (Berthold WolpeBerthold Ludwig Wolpe OBE was a German typeface designer and teacher.Wolpe was born in Offenbach, Germany. Trained as a calligrapher with Rudolf Koch at the Offenbach Workshops, as well as a silversmith. The dual knowledge of these crafts informed his thinking about letter design...
, 1932-40)
- Albion (1910)
Divisions
- Monotype Imaging Inc.: Monotype's American headquarters in Woburn, Massachusetts
Woburn is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USA. The population was 38,120 at the 2010 census. Woburn is located north of Boston, Massachusetts, and just south of the intersection of I-93 and I-95.- History :...
.
- Monotype Imaging Ltd.: Monotype's UK branch in Surrey, England.
- Linotype GmbH: Monotype's European affiliate in Bad Homburg (Germany).
- China Type Design Ltd.: A typeface design and production company based in Hong Kong.
- Monotype Imaging K. K.: Monotype's Japanese branch in Tokyo.
External links