Type foundry
The German coat of arms for a type-founders' guild (or "Schriftgießer" in German)
A type foundry is a company that designs or distributes typefaces. Before desktop publishing, type foundries manufactured and sold metal and wood typefaces and matrices for line-casting machines like the Linotype and Monotype machines designed to be used with letterpress printers. Today's digital type foundries accumulate and distribute typefaces (typically as digitized fonts) created by type designers, who may either be freelancers operating their own independent foundry, or employed by another foundry. Type foundries may also provide custom type design services.
In England, type foundries began in 1476, when William Caxton introduced the printing press. Thereafter the City of London became a major centre for the industry, until recent times when famous metal-based printing districts such as Fleet Street came to the close of their era. The industry was particularly important in Victorian times, when education became available to all due to the new school boards, and firms such as Charles Reed & Sons were in their heyday. The St Bride Printing Library in the City of London encourages wider public interest in the history of type founding for the printed book and newspaper.
Modern corporate type foundries
Independent type foundries
- 2Rebels
- Aerotype
- Alphabet Soup Type Founders
- Altered Ego Fonts
- Apply Interactive
- Archetype Typography
- Astygmatic One-Eye
- Atomic Media
- Baseline Fonts
- Blambot
- Bold Monday
- Canada Type
- Cape Arcona Type Foundry
- Chank Diesel
- Characters Font Foundry
- Colophon Foundry
- Comicraft
- Commercial Type
- Crazy diamond design
- Cubanica
- Dalton Maag
- Discourse Type
- Darden Studio
- Darren Scott Typographics
- Dennis Ortiz-Lopez Type Foundry
- DSType
- Emtype Foundry
- Fatype
- Feliciano Type Foundry
- Fewell Foundry
- Fontcraft
- Font Diner
- FontHaus
- Fonthead Design
- Fontosaurus
- Fountain
- Galapagos Design Group
- GarageFonts
- Greater Albion Typefounders
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- JY&A Fonts
- Identikal
- Indian Type Foundry
- insigne Design
- Kimmy Design
- Larabie Fonts/Typodermic
- LettError
- Lineto
- MAC Rhino Fonts [MRF]
- Misprinted Type
- |MVB
- Nick's Fonts
- Okay Type
- OurType
- Parachute
- PIntassilgoPrints
- Playtype
- P22 Type Foundry
- PSY/OPS Type Foundry
- Sandoll Communications
- Scriptorium Fonts
- SelfBuild Type Foundry
- Stone Type Foundry
- Storm Type Foundry
- Sudtipos
- Suitcase Type Foundry
- Test Pilot Collective
- The Type Fetish
- Thirstype/Village
- Tour De Force Font Foundry
- Typeco
- TypeTogether
- Typofonderie / formerly Porchez Typofonderie
- Typographies.fr
- Typotheque
- Underware
- Zang-O-Fonts
- Webfont Foundry
- WC Fonts
- WhiteCrow Designs
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Specialty type foundries
- Quaker City Type Foundry
- Offizin Parnassia Type Foundry
- The Dale Guild Type Foundry
- Mackenzie & Harris Type Foundry
- Skyline Type Foundry
- Bell Type and Rule Company - a 78-year-old type foundry.
- Rainer Gerstenberg (ex Schriftenservice D. Stempel)
Defunct (historic) type foundries
Type distributors/vendors
References
External links
