Monotype & Commercial Type at Hearst

It was a heavy type week at Hearst and a real treat having Monotype and Commercial Type come in and talk to us. Here’s my little round-up of the two inspiring chats.

Monotype - based in Massachusetts specializes in digital typesetting and typeface design and is responsible for many iconic fonts we use today as well as amazing developments in printing technology. In particular, the Monotype machine, which was the first fully mechanical typesetter made way for a lot of typefaces in the 19th and 20th centuries. Some fonts we encounter every day including Times New Roman, Gill Sans, Arial and Bembo were made by Monotype. Monotype has worked for some big clients including Google, Dominos (Yes they did the famous pizza box), Sony, Hearst, and H&M to name a few. 

I loved the article How to Make Clients Care about Fonts (and why you should try)

Commercial Type - based in NYC is the brainchild of Paul Barnes and Christian Schwartz (who we were lucky enough to meet). Commercial type has worked on many projects, most notably the award-winning Guardian Egyptian. The company publishes retail fonts developed by Barnes and Schwartz, their staff, and outside collaborators, and also represents the two and their team when they work together on type design projects.

My favorites are probably Austin and Graphik, both stunning typefaces - love the Arabic version too. Check it out.