Typeface Designs from Monotype Imaging and Linotype Win Awards at Type Directors Club TDC 2008 Competition

Business Wire, April 15, 2008

Ethiopic Design Optimized for Display and Arabic Face Co-Designed by Hermann Zapf Honored

WOBURN, Mass. -- Typefaces from Monotype Imaging Inc. (Nasdaq: TYPE) and its subsidiary, Linotype GmbH, were recognized at the annual TDC2 2008 design competition held by the Type Directors Club of New York City. A TDC panel of industry judges awarded Monotype Imaging's OTS[TM] Ethiopic and Linotype's Palatino([R]) Arabic fonts with design excellence honors. The two typeface designs will be exhibited worldwide along with winning entries from 12 countries beginning this summer as part of a TDC traveling exhibition. The typefaces will also be published in "Typography 29, the Annual of the Type Directors Club."

"We are honored by this recognition from one of the world's oldest and most prestigious typeface design competitions," said Doug Shaw, president and chief executive officer at Monotype Imaging. "Our winning typefaces excel at both form and function. While these typefaces have been acknowledged for excellence in design, they're also easy to read, given a wide variety of uses."

Palatino Arabic

German typeface designer Hermann Zapf, who created the Palatino typeface family more than a half century ago, collaborated on the Palatino Arabic font with Lebanese type designer, Nadine Chahine. The design was based on Zapf's Al-Ahram[TM] typeface, completed by Zapf in 1956 but reworked for Palatino Arabic to fit the Palatino nova[TM] family.

"I always wanted to redesign Al-Ahram in today's digital technology because it liberates us from the burdens of the past," said Zapf, referring to the restrictions imposed by the casting process of metal type which were endured at the time the Al-Ahram typeface was released. Zapf has been designing typefaces since the 1930s, when hot metal typesetting machines from Linotype and Monotype were used to compose text for use in the letterpress method of printing.

"Collaborating with Professor Zapf was inspirational," said Chahine, who also manages sales marketing at Linotype. "He has created some of the most widely used and timeless designs, and at nearly 90 years old, he still loves the art of typography. To be in the presence of genius was a very humbling experience." Among Zapf's credits are the Optima([R]) and Zapfino([R])designs, as well as the ITC Zapf Chancery([R]) and ITC Zapf Dingbats([R]) typefaces, which first gained wide distribution as two of the 35 PostScript([R]) fonts embedded in the Apple LaserWriter([R]) Plus printer, one of the first laser printers available to the mass market.

Designed for print, the Palatino Arabic typeface includes additional ligatures and stylistic alternates, as well as the basic Latin portion of the Palatino nova font and additional support for the Persian and Urdu languages. Proportional and tabular numerals for the supported languages are also included. "While based on the classical Naskh style but with a Thuluth flavor, the result is a very modern and friendly text face. Palatino Arabic is easy to read, even at small sizes," Chahine said.

OTS Ethiopic

Legibility was also a key objective for the OTS Ethiopic font, based on a bitmap design by Dutch designer, Jelle Bosma, of Monotype Imaging. American type designers George Ryan and Jim Wasco of Monotype Imaging created an outline version based on the TrueType([R]) format with consultant Daniel Yacob, an expert on Ethiopic scripts.

"Type is increasingly expected to perform as beautifully on screen as it does in print," said Jim Wasco, U.S. manager of font development at Monotype Imaging. "OTS stands for 'off the shelf,' which fits with our strategy to deliver high-quality world language solutions that can be used off-the-shelf by manufacturers and developers of consumer electronics devices."

The inspiration of the OTS Ethiopic design cannot be credited to a single typeface. "I looked at various typefaces, which had in common that they were quirky, quasi-calligraphic and irregular. From these designs, I attempted to distill something organized, constructed and regular, yet suitable to express with few pixels," said Bosma, whose design credits include the Cambria([R]) serif family, which is part of the font set bundled with Microsoft's Windows Vista([R]) platform and the 2007 Microsoft([R]) Office application suite.

Typeface availability

The Palatino Arabic font is available in the cross-platform OpenType([R]) format from www.fonts.com and www.linotype.com. Customers may also contact Monotype Imaging in the U.S. toll-free at 800-424-8973, or in Europe or other parts of the world by calling Linotype at 49 (0) 6172 484-418. Customers may also contact Monotype Imaging at 001 781 970-6020 (U.S.).

Device manufacturers and developers requiring further information on licensing the OTS Ethiopic font may contact Monotype Imaging at oemsales@monotypeimaging.com or call the company's U.S. headquarters at 781-970-6000, prompt 5.

Type Directors Club

Based in New York City, the Type Directors Club is an international organization founded in 1946 with members that include design professionals, typographic designers and type enthusiasts. This year's eleventh annual TDC2 competition featured 21 winners from 166 entrants, which represented 28 countries. The TDC also holds the TDC54 competition simultaneously, which honors typography in use in various works, including posters, corporate identity, books, media and stationery.