Type foundry

A type foundry is a company that designs or distributes typefaces. Originally, type foundries manufactured and sold metal and wood typefaces and matrices for line-casting machines like the Linotype and Monotype machines designed to be printed on 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 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 remarkable history of typefounding for the printed book and newspaper.

Contents

Corporate type foundries

Large form type foundries

Independent type foundries

Specialty type foundries

Active metal type foundries (letterpress)

Defunct (historic) type foundries

Type distributors/vendors

References

External links

Typography terminology
Page
Paragraph
Character
Capitalization
Vertical aspects
Classifications
Punctuation
Typesetting
Typographic units
Point · Pica · Cicero · Em · En · Figure space · Thin space · Paren space · Agate · Measure
Digital typography
Font formats · Typesetting software · Character encoding · Rasterization · Hinting