Tommy Thompson was an American calligrapher, graphic artist and typeface designer. In 1944 he became the first designer to earn royalties for a type design, from Photo Lettering Inc. for his Thompson Quill Script. Previously, designers had worked in house for foundries or had sold the rights to their faces outright. He maintaned a studio in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 and was the author of several books on type and lettering.

Typefaces

Thompson designed all of these foundry types:

• Post Headletter (1943, Monotype), privately cast for the Saturday Evening Post.
• Collier Heading (1946, Monotype), privately cast for Collier's Magazine.
• Mademoiselle (1953, Baltimore Type Foundry), matrices cut by Herman Schnorr. Originally cast for Mademoiselle Magazine
  Mademoiselle (magazine)
  Mademoiselle was an influential women's magazine first published in 1935 by Street and Smith and later acquired by Condé Nast Publications....
  
  , but later offered for general sale.
• Baltimore Script (1955, Baltimore Type Foundry), matrices cut by George Battee.
• Additional weights of Futura
  Futura
  Futura may refer to:* Futura International Airways* Futura * Futura * Aprilia Futura, a motorcycle* Lincoln Futura, a Ford concept car* Futura a product of Hawkins Cookers Limited* Futura 2000, a graffiti artist...
  
  for Intertype
  Intertype Corporation
  The Intertype Corporation produced the Intertype, a typecasting machine closely resembling the Linotype, and using the same matrices as the Linotype...
  
   (1950's).
• Thompson Quill Script (1953, American Type Founders
  American Type Founders
  American Type Founders 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...
  
  ), this was also made available for phototypesetting
  Phototypesetting
  Phototypesetting was a method of setting type, rendered obsolete with the popularity of the personal computer and desktop publishing software, that uses a photographic process to generate columns of type on a scroll of photographic paper...
  
   by Photo Lettering Inc..

Books

• The script letter; its form, construction and application, New York, The Studio Publications Inc., 1939.
• How to render roman letter forms. A pattern for understanding and drawing roman letters and other styles of lettering and type faces related to them, New York, American Studio Books, 1946.
• Basic layout design; a pattern for understanding the basic motifs in design and how to apply them to graphic art problems, New York, Studio Publications, in association with Crowell, c. 1950.