FontShop International

Last updated
FontShop International
Company type GmbH
Industry Type foundry, Stock photography
Founded Berlin, Germany (1990 (1990))
FoundersJoan Spiekermann, Erik Spiekermann, Neville Brody
DefunctJuly 14, 2014 (2014-07-14)
FateAcquired by Monotype
Headquarters,
Germany
Key people
Petra Weitz, CEO
Products Fonts, Digital images
Website www.fontshop.com

FontShop International was an international manufacturer of digital typefaces (fonts), based in Berlin. It was one of the largest digital type foundries.

Contents

The FontFont library of fonts contains designs by 160 type designers, [1] among them renowned designers such as Peter Biľak, Evert Bloemsma, Erik van Blokland, Neville Brody, Martin Majoor, Albert-Jan Pool, Hans Reichel, Just van Rossum, Fred Smeijers, and Erik Spiekermann. The aim of FontFont is to offer typefaces by designers for designers.

FontShop International was acquired by Monotype Imaging on July 14, 2014. [2] The deal came as part of Monotype's takeover of many of the other large digital type retailers, including Linotype, Monotype, ITC, and Bitstream.

In August 2023, Monotype announced that it would be closing the FontShop e-commerce site, together with Linotype and Fonts.com. [3] In its announcement, Monotype stated that it could no longer maintain its desired level of quality across the legacy platforms and would instead be focussing its efforts on developing its MyFonts site. [4]

History

The Typo San Francisco conference in 2014 was organised by FontShop. Typo San Francisco 2014 (13925582055).jpg
The Typo San Francisco conference in 2014 was organised by FontShop.

After founding the first German reseller of typefaces FontShop on June 12, 1991, Joan Spiekermann, Erik Spiekermann, and Neville Brody started an independent type foundry just one year later. [5] They commissioned a few young type designers to make the first few FontFonts. The first font ever was FF Beowolf by the Dutch Erik van Blokland and Just van Rossum in 1990. [6] It was called a “living” font because it used a random feature of the PostScript language to generate randomly different letter forms each time when printed. The library has grown over the years by numerous FF releases (being 59 until May 2012 [7] ) and is now one of the world's largest collections of contemporary type designs.

Between 1991 and 2000 FontShop International published together with Neville Brody 18 issues of the experimental typographical magazine FUSE and organised several FUSE conferences, the forerunners of the annual European design conference TYPO Berlin.

In 2001, FontShop International founded their own stock photo agency called ƒStop and introduced it to the stock photography market.

In February 2010, FSI was the first font manufacturer to publish web fonts in the new WOFF format, which, in combination with the EOT Lite format supported by Microsoft Internet Explorer, supports the majority of current browsers and restricts web designers to the system fonts that are installed on all website visitors. These web fonts are linked to the elements of a website in such a way that HTML texts have the same, individual typography for all visitors. [8]

Company structure

FontShop International was licensor for four FontShops in Austria, Benelux, Germany, and the United States. FontShop USA, based in San Francisco, was owned by FontShop International; all the other FontShops are separate, independent companies concentrating on their own markets. While FontShop International publishes typefaces as a foundry, the FontShops worked as resellers of FontShop International's FontFonts but also of fonts from other foundries (111 in August 2011). [9]

FontShop International's legal form was GmbH.

FontFont

The main focus at FontShop International was the extension and maintenance of the FontFont typeface library. Fonts published as FontFonts were always named using the prefix FF. Besides text and headline fonts such as FF Dax, FF DIN, FF Meta, FF Quadraat, and FF Scala there were also special designs like the “dirty” or grunge typography typewriter font FF Trixie, the “living” font FF Beowolf and digital handwriting fonts FF Erikrighthand and FF Justlefthand (FF Hands package). The library consists of over different 700 font families.

Type designers could submit their own type designs for publication in the FontFont library. A committee of internal experts (TypeBoard) reviewed submissions for aesthetical, technical, and marketing aspects and decides about publication in the library. A basic prerequisite was that the type designs were original.

FontBook

FontShop International was also publisher of the FontBook. The FontBook is an independent compendium of digital typefaces. The first edition was published in 1991 and revised and extended three times to show as many new and updated typefaces as possible. The last edition, the fourth edition from September 2006, contained 1,760 pages with showings of 32,000 typefaces by 90 international foundries, being the largest printed type reference book of the world. In addition to the type specimens, users could find information about the type designer, year of publication, style category, language versions and see-also references to similar alternate typefaces. [10]

In 2011, FontShop International published the first digital version of the FontBook. The iPad app contains 620,000 typeface specimens by 110 international type foundries. [11]

fStop

FontShop International also published the image library fStop, named as a reference to the f-numbers of photography. At present, 22,000 royalty-free photos by 150 photographers are offered (December 2008). The images are distributed directly as well as via some of the FontShops and Getty Images.

FontStruct

FontStruct.com is a website where registered users can create, share and download modular, grid-based typefaces. The idea was pitched by Rob Meek of Meek Design to FontShop in 2006". [12] FontStruct is a free font-building tool, as described on its website home page, "Build, Share, Download Fonts. It's simple and free!". To register, users have to give an email address or username, and a password. After the demise of FontShop International, the website has continued as an independent service, with support from other sponsors in the type design field. [13]

Literature

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthew Carter</span> British type designer (born 1937)

Matthew Carter is a British type designer. A 2005 New Yorker profile described him as 'the most widely read man in the world' by considering the amount of text set in his commonly used typefaces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erik Spiekermann</span> German typographer, designer and writer (born 1947)

Erik Spiekermann is a German typographer, designer and writer. He is an honorary professor at the University of the Arts Bremen and ArtCenter College of Design.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monotype Imaging</span> American typesetting and typeface design company

Monotype Imaging Holdings Inc., founded as Lanston Monotype Machine Company in 1887 in Philadelphia by Tolbert Lanston, is an American company that specializes in digital typesetting and typeface design for use with consumer electronics devices. Based in Woburn, Massachusetts, the company has been responsible for many developments in printing technology—in particular the Monotype machine, which was a fully mechanical hot metal 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, Arial, Bembo and Albertus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Type foundry</span> Company that designs typefaces (fonts)

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 Monotype, for letterpress printers. Today's digital type foundries accumulate and distribute typefaces created by type designers, who may either be freelancers operating their own independent foundry, or employed by a foundry. Type foundries may also provide custom type design services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neville Brody</span> British graphic designer

Neville Brody, is an English graphic designer, typographer and art director. He is known for his work on The Face magazine (1981–1986), Arena magazine (1987–1990), and designing record covers for artists such as Clock DVA, Cabaret Voltaire, The Bongos, 23 Skidoo and Depeche Mode. He created the company Research Studios in 1994 and is a founding member of Fontworks. His work is included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). He was the Dean of the School of Communication at the Royal College of Art, London until September 2018. He is now Professor of Communication.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Akzidenz-Grotesk</span> Grotesque sans-serif typeface

Akzidenz-Grotesk is a sans-serif typeface family originally released by the Berthold Type Foundry of Berlin. "Akzidenz" indicates its intended use as a typeface for commercial print runs such as publicity, tickets and forms, as opposed to fine printing, and "grotesque" was a standard name for sans-serif typefaces at the time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rotis</span> Typeface family

Rotis is a typeface developed in 1988 by Otl Aicher, a German graphic designer and typographer. In Rotis, Aicher explores an attempt at maximum legibility through a highly unified yet varied typeface family that ranges from full serif, glyphic, and sans-serif. The four basic Rotis variants are:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DIN 1451</span> Grotesque sans-serif typeface

DIN 1451 is a sans-serif typeface that is widely used for traffic, administrative and technical applications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FF Meta</span> Humanist sans-serif typeface

FF Meta is a humanist sans-serif typeface family designed by Erik Spiekermann and released in 1991 through his FontFont library.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FF Scala</span> Old-style serif typeface

FF Scala is an old-style serif typeface designed by Dutch typeface designer Martin Majoor in 1991 for the Muziekcentrum Vredenburg in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The FF Scala font family was named for the Teatro alla Scala (1776–78) in Milan, Italy. Like many contemporary Dutch serif faces, FF Scala is not an academic revival of a single historic typeface but shows influences of several historic models. Similarities can be seen with William Addison Dwiggins' 1935 design for the typeface Electra in its clarity of form, and rhythmic, highly calligraphic italics. Eric Gill's 1931 typeface Joanna, with its old style armature but nearly square serifs, is also similar in its nearly mono-weighted stroke width.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FF Scala Sans</span> Humanist sans-serif typeface

FF Scala Sans is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Dutch designer Martin Majoor in 1993 for the Vredenburg Music Center in Utrecht, the Netherlands. It was designed as a companion to Majoor's earlier serif old style typeface FF Scala, designed in 1990.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Luc(as) de Groot</span>

Lucas de Groot, known professionally as Luc(as) de Groot, is a Dutch type designer. He is the head of the type foundry Fontfabrik, also trading as LucasFonts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joanna (typeface)</span> Typeface designed by Eric Gill

Joanna is a serif typeface designed by Eric Gill (1882–1940) from 1930 to 1931 that was named for one of his daughters. Gill chose Joanna for setting An Essay on Typography, a book by Gill on his thoughts on typography, typesetting and page design. He described it as "a book face free from all fancy business".

<i>FontBook</i>

FontBook is a typeface compendium in hardback published by FSI FontShop International and edited by Erik Spiekermann, Jürgen Siebert, and Mai-Linh Thi Truong. Published in 1991, it has been revised four times, with the latest edition published in September 2006. This fourth edition contains 32,000 samples of fonts from 90 international type foundries. In addition to type samples, FontBook also contains historical footnotes and cross-references to fonts of similar style.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">FF DIN</span> Grotesque sans-serif typeface

FF DIN is a sans-serif typeface in the industrial or "grotesque" style. It was designed in 1995 by Albert-Jan Pool, based on DIN-Mittelschrift and DIN-Engschrift, as defined in the German standard DIN 1451. DIN is an acronym for Deutsches Institut für Normung. It was published by FontShop in its FontFont library of typefaces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albert-Jan Pool</span> Dutch professional type designer (born 1960)

Albert-Jan Pool is a Dutch type designer and educator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin Majoor</span> Dutch type designer and graphic designer (born 1960)

Martin Majoor is a Dutch type designer and graphic designer. As of 2006, he had worked since 1997 in both Arnhem, Netherlands, and Warsaw, Poland.

The Gerrit Noordzij Prize is given to type designers and typographers for extraordinary contributions to the fields of type design, typography and type education. The prize, initiated by Anno Fekkes during the 1996 ATypI conference in The Hague, is awarded every three years by the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague together with the Museum Meermanno, under the auspices of the Dr. P.A. Tiele Trust. The prize is named after Gerrit Noordzij, who was a professor of typeface design at the Royal Academy of Art. For the continuity of the prize, the Gerrit Noordzij Fund was created.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erik van Blokland</span> Dutch typeface designer

Erik van Blokland is a Dutch typeface designer, educator and computer programmer. He is the head of the Type Media Master of Design program in Typeface Design at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague in the Netherlands.

Just van Rossum is a Dutch typeface designer, software developer, and professor at the Royal Academy of Art in the Hague. He is the co-founder of design firm, LettError, along with Erik van Blokland. Just van Rossum is the younger brother of Guido van Rossum, creator of the Python programming language.

References

  1. "Designers". fontfont.com. Archived from the original on 2011-07-03.
  2. "Monotype Acquires FontShop International". Monotype Imaging Holdings Inc. Archived from the original on 14 March 2015. Retrieved 16 July 2014.
  3. "Business Update: Monotype Announces Changes to Direct Commerce Sales Platforms". Monotype.com. 30 August 2023. Archived from the original on 16 September 2023.
  4. "Upcoming Site Closures & FAQs". MyFonts.com. Archived from the original on 16 September 2023.
  5. "Celebrating 20 Years of FontShop With Joan Spiekermann". fontfeed.com. 2015-04-02. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015. Retrieved 2022-02-23.
  6. "FontFont". FontShop. Archived from the original on 2017-11-08. Retrieved 2022-02-23.
  7. "Release news on fontfont.com". Archived from the original on 2012-05-09.
  8. "Blog Font". FontShop. Archived from the original on 2022-02-23. Retrieved 2022-02-23.
  9. "FontShop". FontShop. Archived from the original on 2022-02-23. Retrieved 2022-02-23.
  10. "FontBook". FontShop International’s FontFont website. Archived from the original on 2012-05-03.
  11. "FontBook app". FontShop International’s FontFont website. Archived from the original on 2011-07-03.
  12. Meek, Robert. "FontStruct @ Meek". Meek – Design and Development. Archived from the original on 13 April 2018. Retrieved 13 April 2018.
  13. "About FontStruct | FontStruct". fontstruct.com. Archived from the original on 2021-11-30. Retrieved 2021-11-24.