Monotype acquires London type foundry behind big British brands
Font and typography specialist Monotype has acquired Fontsmith, a boutique London type foundry that has worked for many quintessential British brands including the BBC, British Gas and Lloyds Bank.
With this acquisition, it will add a collection of award-winning typefaces to the Monotype library, expanding it include 70 new brand font families, which will be added to Monotype’s Mosaic solution to help creative teams share and prototype Monotype’s premier fonts without the hassle of licensing and managing their usage.
Fontsmith has won several awards for its library fonts and in 2019 it introduced one of the world’s first variable font logos for WWP’s new campus in Amsterdam.
“Fontsmith has been a trendsetter in the type community and with this acquisition we’re thrilled to add a well-respected library of fonts and an innovative group of type designers into the Monotype family,” says Monotype CEO Scott Landers. “Their collective experience, expertise, and body of work will add immediate value to our customers through the Monotype Library, Monotype Studio and Monotype’s Mosaic solution.”
The London foundry will also benefit from Monotype’s big name in the industry, by gaining more exposure, and have access to additional resources to expand its technologies.
Jason Smith, founder of Fontsmith, who started his design career as an intern at Monotype when he was just 18 years old, believes the acquisition represents an even better way for the two companies to serve the creative industry going forwards.
“After 23 years of building Fontsmith into one of the premiere boutique type foundries in Europe, we’re excited to join creative forces with Monotype to create an even more powerful, forward-thinking Monotype Studio. Our combined expertise will help us better serve the creative industry in ways that we’ve never done before,” Smith says.
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