Highlights from Monotype at ADC Hamburg.

From June 4th to 7th, 2024, the creative industry gathered in the port of Hamburg for the ADC Festival 2024. A who’s who of German and global design, and an event we certainly weren’t going to miss! We had the pleasure not only of attending, but also speaking and hosting partnered activations with Merchery. Here’s the low-down on what we got up to at the festival:

Fonts: To free or not to free?

With so many fonts available for free, why should you ever pay for one?

This is the question many brands face. There are plenty of high-quality free fonts available from reputable libraries that will do the job for a variety of projects. In other cases, it’s worth paying for fonts from a foundry or subscription provider. Which is right for you? Here’s a guide to choosing the right option for your project. 
 

Font management: Common digital challenges and how to fix them.

It’s well-known that font related issues can have a dramatic impact on your creative workflows, creative output as well as your admin teams. Lesser known, but just as important, is the impact fonts can have on your internal IT, as well as the digital experience you’re offering as a brand.

Brand Talks Paris

We recently had the pleasure of hosting Brand Talks in Paris. It was our second time ever hosting in the French capital and was a great success! Surrounded by stunning views of the Parisian skyline, the Eiffel tower looking over from afar, we sat down for a captivating afternoon, listening to some of the industry’s finest. Renaud Cambuzat from lingerie brand Chantelle kicked things off with a presentation about restructuring in an evolving market. Then, Reza Bassiri, from design agency Carré Noir, accompanied by Isabelle Duvernay (from CCF bank), presented two case studies: the rebirth of French banking landmark CCF, and the recent rebrand of the Kronenbourg brewery. Alexandre Delassus and Pascal d’Amico followed up with a candid presentation of sporting mega-brand Decathlon’s rebrand. Our very own Damien Collot and Laurène Girbal closed off the event with a poetic nod to what makes typography so fascinating and intriguing.

Why forward-thinking font planning pays off.

With great digital presence comes the great responsibility of protecting your digital assets. Fonts stand bravely at the frontlines of your organization’s brand, valiantly broadcasting its values at every touchpoint. Therein lies the question - how does a brand protect its fonts so the fonts can speak for the brand?

Two roads to procuring fonts: Online vs offline.

If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together. Accompanying you on your company’s branding journey, this guide is designed to support you as you decide which path to take when it comes to font license acquisition.

7 common problems organizations face due to poor font management practices.

Every organization has their own approach to managing their fonts, but oftentimes these practices aren’t consistent across the board. This makes working with fonts tricky and causes issues over time.

5 Monotype Fonts features you’ll love.

Here are 5 of the best Monotype Fonts features to make font use easier. Monotype Fonts is not just a font library, it’s a cloud-based font management solution. Whether you’re a creative or an administrator, here are some of the Monotype Fonts features that will soon become your favorite.

What do your fonts say about you?

Your customers see your brand through design and typography. Typography is your brand’s ambassador. It is your visual voice, speaking for you every hour of every day, everywhere your brand lives.

Touvlo: a zestful, modern grotesque with lively flair.

New from the Monotype Studio’s Creative Type Director, Emilios Theofanous, Touvlo – meaning brick in Greek – is an homage to London and the view from his studio window.

Shorai Sans.

New from the Monotype Studio, Shorai Sans is a contemporary Japanese sans serif designed by Creative Type Director, Akira Kobayashi; type Designer, Ryota Doi; and  typography legend, Yukihiro Nakamura. 

Cotford takes you places: A soulful, contemporary  serif typeface for the digital age.

New from the Monotype Studio, Cotford is a contemporary serif from Creative Type Director, Tom Foley. Cotford is available as a variable font and as 16 static weights, including  Display and Text styles. Cotford is available to all Montoype Fonts customers and can also be purchased at MyFonts. 

More of everything, for everyone. Introducing Helvetica Now Variable.

Helvetica Now Variable, new from the Monotype Studio, offers more than a million new Helvetica styles in one state-of-the-art font file, allowing you to create infinite shades of expression, incredible typographic animations, and ultra-refined typography.

Introducing Futura Now: The definitive version of an iconic family.

Futura Now is the definitive version of the definitive geometric sans, re-digitized based on Paul Renner’s original designs and updated to provide a more contemporary typographic palette.

Meet FS Rosa.

Serif typefaces are sometimes seen as serious and overtly intellectual, a more somber sister to their laid-back counterpart, the sans serif. But FS Rosa breaks away from these conventions by combining the classic elegance of a serif with warmth and frivolity, created by its round letterforms and curves. 

Meet Macklin.

Malou Verlomme’s Macklin superfamily is a gently irreverent take on the display type of the late 19th century, with an elegant twist that updates these letterforms for modern use. Choose one style, or use the entire variable family as a type toolbox.

Veto Sans and the art and craft of Marco Ganz

“Typeface design is not an art. It’s a craft,” says Marco Ganz, the designer of Veto Sans. “People are familiar with letters. Letters have a purpose. Art has no purpose beyond making people think or wonder.”