The Font Bureau, Inc. or Font Bureau is a digital

type foundry A type foundry is a company that designs or distributes typefaces. Before digital typography, type foundries manufactured and sold metal and wood typefaces for hand typesetting, and matrices for line-casting machines like the Linotype and ...

based in

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. The foundry is one of the leading designers of typefaces, specializing in type designs for magazine and newspaper publishers.

History

Font Bureau was founded in 1989 by

Roger Black Roger Anthony Black MBE (born 31 March 1966) is an English former athlete who competed internationally for Great Britain and England. During his athletics career, he won individual silver medals in the 400 metres sprint at both the Olympic Ga ...

and David Berlow. Before founding Font Bureau, Roger Black was an established publications designer and consultant. David Berlow is a noted type designer. ''

The New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. The magazi ...

'', ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...

'', ''

Esquire Magazine ''Esquire'' is an American men's magazine. Currently published in the United States by Hearst, it also has more than 20 international editions. Founded in 1933, it flourished during the Great Depression and World War II under the guidance of ...

'', ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...

'' and the ''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...

'' rank among Font Bureau's client list. Apart from Black and Berlow, other prominent designers at Font Bureau have included

Tobias Frere-Jones Tobias Frere-Jones (born Tobias Edgar Mallory Jones, August 28, 1970) is an American type designer who works in New York City. He operates the company Frere-Jones Type and teaches typeface design at the Yale School of Art MFA program. Among his t ...

, later of

Hoefler & Frere-Jones Hoefler&Co. (H&Co) is a digital type foundry (font design studio) in Woburn, Massachusetts (formerly New York City), founded by type designer Jonathan Hoefler. H&Co designs typefaces for clients and for retail on its website. The company was fou ...

and Frere-Jones Type, and

Cyrus Highsmith Cyrus Highsmith (born 1973) is an American typeface designer, illustrator, and author. After graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1997, he worked at Font Bureau in Boston as Senior Type Designer until founding his own type foundry, ...

, later of Occupant Fonts and Morisawa.

Matthew Carter Matthew Carter (born 1 October 1937) is an English type designer.A Man of Letters

has been a frequent collaborator with the foundry. In October 2009, news sources reported that Font Bureau was "suing

NBC Universal NBCUniversal Media, LLC (abbreviated as NBCU and doing business as NBCUniversal or Comcast NBCUniversal since 2013) is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate that is a subsidiary of Comcast and headquartered at 30 ...

for at least $2 million over the entertainment company's use of its fonts." Font Bureau claimed NBC broke its license agreement in its use of the fonts Antenna, Bureau Grotesque and

Interstate The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, or the Eisenhower Interstate System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National H ...

in marketing material. Following the launch of TypeNetwork in 2016, Font Bureau foundry would begin to focus primarily on type design and custom services, while the company's font licensing business, font development activities, and retail shop would be relocated to TypeNetwork. On July 6, 2016, The Font Bureau, Inc. announced all its retail typefaces are sold exclusively at TypeNetwork, withdrawing sales in Fonts.com,

MyFonts MyFonts is a digital fonts distributor, based in Woburn, Massachusetts. It was created by Bitstream Inc., launched in September 1999 (during the ATypI conference in Boston), and started selling fonts in March 2000. In November 2011, Monotype Im ...

FontShop FontShop International was an international manufacturer of digital typefaces (fonts), based in Berlin. It was one of the largest digital type foundries. The ''FontFont'' library of fonts contains designs by 160 type designers, among them renow ...

. Font Bureau withdrew their fonts from the

Adobe Fonts Adobe Fonts (formerly Typekit) is an online service that provides its subscribers with access to its font library, under a single licensing agreement. The fonts may be used directly on websites, or synced via Adobe Creative Cloud to applications ...

library on June 15, 2020. On 4 May 2023,

Monotype Corporation Monotype Imaging Holdings Inc., founded as Lanston Monotype Machine Company in 1887 in Philadelphia by Tolbert Lanston, is an American (historically Anglo-American) company that specializes in digital typesetting and typeface design for use wit ...

acquired 39 typefaces from the Font Bureau library. On 1 July 2024, TypeNetwork announced Font Bureau typefaces no longer offered on TypeNetwork as a result of the transfer of nearly half rights from their library to their original designers and replaced by alternative typefaces made by various designers.

Typefaces

The following foundry types were issued by Font Foundry:

References

External links

The Font Bureau, Inc.

Type NetworkWebtype
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160726230735/http://www.webtype.com/ , date=2016-07-26 Commercial type foundries Companies based in Boston 1989 establishments in Massachusetts American companies established in 1989

History

Typefaces

See also

References

External links