Monotype began with a machine that cast metal type one letter at a time. By 2007 it owned many of the letters the world reads, including Helvetica and Times New Roman. It licensed fonts and font technology to the makers of printers, phones, cars and software. Most people never saw its name. Its type appeared on billions of screens and pages, and its fonts were built into many office laser printers.

From Hot Metal to Pixels

Tolbert Lanston invented the Monotype machine in the 1880s. The company survived the move from hot metal to photo type to digital fonts by holding on to its library and its craft. Its modern bet was that fonts were intellectual property. Device makers would license them, one unit at a time. In 2006 it bought Linotype, the German type house whose library included Helvetica.

Fonts for Brands

Monotype Imaging priced its IPO at $12 a share in July 2007 on the Nasdaq. It bought more type libraries, including Ascender in 2010. It built a large business licensing fonts to brands and developers, and sold them through its Fonts.com site. In 2019 the private equity firm HGGC took Monotype private for about $825 million. Its fonts are still licensed to device makers, software companies and global brands.

Cover: Auguste Delâtre, Printer, James McNeill Whistler. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a printer at work (type and printing).