Hoefler&Co. (H&Co) 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 Mono ...

(font design studio) in Woburn, Massachusetts (formerly

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

), founded by type designer

Jonathan Hoefler Jonathan Hoefler (; born August 22, 1970) is an American typeface designer. Hoefler founded the Hoefler Type Foundry in 1989, a type foundry in New York. Early life Jonathan Hoefler was born on August 22, 1970, in New York City to Doreen Ben ...

. H&Co designs typefaces for clients and for retail on its website. The company was founded in 1989, initially focusing on editorial commissions for publications such as ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', ''

Martha Stewart Living ''Martha Stewart Living'' is a magazine and former television program Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of ...

'', ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', ''

Esquire Esquire (, ; abbreviated Esq.) is usually a courtesy title. In the United Kingdom, ''esquire'' historically was a title of respect accorded to men of higher social rank, particularly members of the landed gentry above the rank of gentlema ...

'', ''

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

'', ''

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twic ...

'', ''

Harper's Bazaar ''Harper's Bazaar'' is an American monthly women's fashion magazine. It was first published in New York City on November 2, 1867, as the weekly ''Harper's Bazar''. ''Harper's Bazaar'' is published by Hearst and considers itself to be the st ...

'', '' Wired'' and ''

Condé Nast Portfolio Portfolio.com was a website published by American City Business Journals that provideed news and information for small to mid-sized businesses (SMB). It was previously the website for the monthly business magazine ''Condé Nast Portfolio'', pub ...

'', and commissions for companies such as Tiffany & Co., Nike, Inc., and

Hewlett Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...

. It has worked with a number of prominent cultural institutions in New York City, including the headquarters of the United Nations, the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum, Lever House,

Radio City Music Hall Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue and Theater (structure), theater at 1260 Sixth Avenue (Manhattan), Avenue of the Americas, within Rockefeller Center, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Nicknamed "The Showplac ...

, The Public Theater, and The

New York Jets The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The J ...

. Because of its inspiration from New York City history, its Gotham typeface was selected in 2004 for the cornerstone of One World Trade Center, built on the World Trade Center site. Incorporated as The Hoefler Type Foundry (HTF), in 2005 the company rebranded as Hoefler & Frere-Jones (H&FJ), and in 2014 as Hoefler&Co (H&Co). In September 2021 Hoefler announced the company's sale to Monotype, with Hoefler and CEO Carleen Borsella leaving the company.

Work

The company specializes in designing original typefaces, often comprehensive type families that include a range of styles or characters: its Gotham typeface for GQ extends to 74 for print alone, and its Surveyor/Obsidian family past 100. Many H&Co typefaces take inspiration from historical models, and under-examined aspects of typography and lettering, such as Soviet house numbers, metal lettering on bus terminals, engraved maps, and old petrol pumps. ''

Bloomberg Businessweek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...

'' commented that Hoefler and Frere-Jones bonded over a dislike of "so-called grunge typography, which trafficked in angst and messiness. Neither Frere-Jones nor Hoefler took to that trend, preferring a cleaner style based on historic typefaces." The company's work has been profiled in ''

'', ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'', ''

'', '' Wallpaper'', and '' Wired'', as well as the design publications '' Baseline'',
CAP & Design
',
CreativePro
', '' Communication Arts'',
Desktop
', ''

Eye Eyes are organs of the visual system. They provide living organisms with vision, the ability to receive and process visual detail, as well as enabling several photo response functions that are independent of vision. Eyes detect light and conv ...

'', ''Design'', ''

Graphis Inc. ''Graphis, Inc.'' is an international publisher of books and awards for the visual communications industry. Based in New York City, Graphis presents and promotes the best submitted work in Graphic Design, Advertising, Photography and Art/Illust ...

'', '' I.D.'',
IDEA
',
IdN
', ''

Metropolis A metropolis () is a large city or conurbation which is a significant economic, political, and cultural center for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections, commerce, and communications. A big c ...

'',
Page
', '' Print'', ''Publish'', and
+81
'. H&Co's work is part of the permanent collections of both the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

and the

Victoria & Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

, and it has been recognized by the

American Institute of Graphic Arts The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) is a professional organization for design. Its members practice all forms of communication design, including graphic design, typography, interaction design, user experience, branding and identity. T ...

and the

National Design Awards The American National Design Awards, founded in 2000, are funded and awarded by Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a design museum housed within the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan, New ...

Notable uses

The Gotham typeface became famous during 2008, when it was chosen for the identity of

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...

during his campaign for the presidency. The Ringside typeface was used in the Elizabeth Warren 2020 presidential campaign and the Mercury and Decimal typefaces were used in the

Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign Former vice president Joe Biden began his presidential campaign on April 25, 2019 by releasing a video announcing his candidacy in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries. The campaign concluded with him and his running mate Kamala H ...

as well as during the Presidency of Joe Biden (2020-). H&Co typefaces associated with cultural institutions include Knockout (for

The Public Theatre The Public Theater is a New York City arts organization founded as the Shakespeare Workshop in 1954 by Joseph Papp, with the intention of showcasing the works of up-and-coming playwrights and performers.Epstein, Helen. ''Joe Papp: An American L ...

), Ideal Sans (

The Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

), Verlag ( The Guggenheim Museum) and Whitney (

The Whitney Museum The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

). H&Co's Ringside typeface is the official typeface of The Office of Barack and Michelle Obama.

Awards

Jonathan Hoefler was the recipient of the 2002 Prix Charles Peignot, awarded by the Association Typographique Internationale (ATypI) for outstanding contributions to typeface design. In 2009, the company became the first typeface designers to be recognized by the

Conflict between Hoefler and Frere-Jones

On January 16, 2014, designer

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 ty ...

, who had worked with the company since 1999, filed a lawsuit in the courts of New York state against Jonathan Hoefler. The lawsuit alleged that Frere-Jones was entitled to own half of the type foundry, based on an oral agreement made in 1999. According to this alleged agreement, Frere-Jones transferred ownership of his fonts to the company for 10 USD and the company was renamed Hoefler & Frere-Jones. Frere-Jones contends that the foundry was intended to be run as an equal partnership. Hoefler filed a motion to dismiss, refuting Frere-Jones's account by attaching the written agreement signed by himself and Frere-Jones. The lawsuit was settled on September 28, 2014, its terms undisclosed.

List of typefaces

* Archer * Champion Gothic * Gotham * Hoefler Text and display variant Hoefler Titling *Inkwell *Obsidian *Operator *Quarto *

Requiem A Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead ( la, Missa pro defunctis) or Mass of the dead ( la, Missa defunctorum), is a Mass of the Catholic Church offered for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons, ...

Surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ca ...

* Verlag * Whitney

References

iapps.courts.state.ny.us

Parascope

iapps.courts.state.ny.us

External links

* *
Catalogue of typefaces designed
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hoefler and Frere-Jones Commercial type foundries Companies established in 1989 Graphic design studios