Monotype Corporation

This article is about a typesetting and typeface design company. For information on the method of printmaking, see Monotyping.

Monotype Imaging, Inc is a typesetting and typeface design company (type foundry) responsible for many developments in printing technology — in particular the Monotype machine which was the first fully mechanical typesetter — and the design and production of typefaces in the 19th and 20th centuries. Its most widely known product, by far, is the font Times New Roman.

History

Lanston Monotype Machine Company was founded by Tolbert Lanston in Washington D.C., USA, in 1887. Lanston had a patented mechanical method of punching out metal types from cold strips of metal which were set (hence typesetting) into a matrix for the printing press. In 1896 Lanston patented the first hot metal typesetting machine and Monotype issued Modern Condensed, its first typeface. The licenses for the Lanston type library have been acquired by P22, a digital type foundry based in Buffalo, N.Y.

In a search for funding, the company set up a branch in London, England, in 1897 under the name Lanston Monotype Corporation Ltd. In 1899 a new factory was built in Salfords near Redhill in Surrey where it has been located for over a century. The company was of sufficient size to justify the construction of its own railway station.

The original Monotype machine used 'hot metal' to form individual letters. Thus spelling mistakes could be corrected by adding or removing individual letters. This was particularly useful for 'quality' printing - such as books. In contrast the Linotype machine formed a complete line of type in one bar. Editing these required replacing an entire line (and if the replacement ran on to another line, the rest of the paragraph). But Linotype slugs were easier to handle if moving a complete section of text around a page. This was more useful for 'quick' printing - such as newspapers.

The typesetting machines were continually improved in the early years of the 20th century, with a typewriter style keyboard for entering the type being introduced in 1906. Many of the typefaces familiar today were introduced during the first quarter of the 20th century, such as Caslon, Times New Roman and Goudy. For much of this century the company ran a compositor (typesetter operator) training school in London.

In 1936 the company was floated on the London Stock Exchange and became the Monotype Corporation Ltd. Later the company was split into three divisions: Monotype International, which manufactured spinning mirror switched laser beam phototypesetters; Monotype Limited, which continued the hot metal machines; and Monotype Typography, which designed and sold typefaces. A research and development department was set up in Cambridge to isolate it from day to day production issues.

In 1999, Agfa-Compugraphic acquired the Monotype Corporation, which was renamed Agfa Monotype. In late 2004, after six years under the Agfa Corporation, the Monotype assets were acquired by TA Associates, a private equity investment firm based in Boston. The company was incorporated as Monotype Imaging, with a focus on the company's traditional core competencies of typography and professional printing.

Monotype was the first company to produce a digital version of the handwritten Urdu script, Urdu Nasta'liq. A Chinese 'keyboard' was developed to typeset Chinese characters; it comprised a book with a stylus. As the pages were turned, the page number was detected electrically and this was combined with the position of the character selected by the stylus on a large grid.

In early 2000, Monotype launched Fontwise, the first software to audit desktops for licensed and unlicensed fonts.

See also

* Linotype machine
* Monotyping (a form of printmaking)

External links

* Monotype Imaging
* Fontwise
* Lanston Monotype fonts
* Monotype keyboard lecture (at bottom of page)
* Monotype caster lecture (at bottom of page)
* The Press & Letterfoundry of Michael and Winifred Bixler