TYPE DESIGN INFORMATION PAGE last updated on Wed Nov 20 11:39:23 EST 2024

FONT RECOGNITION VIA FONT MOOSE

LUC DEVROYE

ABOUT

MyFonts.com [Laurence Penney]

MyFonts was a division of Bitstream Inc., located in Marlborough, Massachusetts. After Bitstream was taken over by Monotype, it changed directions. Its mission was to make it simple for everyone to find and buy fonts. In pursuit of this mission, MyFonts has pioneered new ways to search for fonts when one does not have an exact font in mind. The concept of MyFonts was born in 1999 when Charles Ying, Bitstream's Chairman of the Board, wanted to find a font for a particular project. He was horrified to discover that the only way to find fonts on the web was to know the name of the font you were looking for, or browse a flat alphabetical list. Why can't I just search for wedding fonts, he asked. This should be as easy as shopping for shoes! I should be able to point at a font in a magazine and say, Show me fonts like this. Charles reasoned that making it hard to find and buy fonts for the average computer user meant turning away 99.9% of the potential market for fonts. He called for an open marketplace, where fonts from many vendors could compete side-by-side. Charles personally hired the initial team and commissioned a site design from (now defunct) Calgary-based Fusion Media Group. MyFonts began selling the Bitstream library on March 20, 2000 through the MyFonts.com website. It now has over 80,000 fonts from about 1000 foundries. It includes WhatTheFont (was Identafont) (send scanned images to the site for automatic recognition), "Show me more like this", TypeXplorer (font space browser), type designer and foundry info. The project manager is Laurence Penney. List of designers.

Postmortem: While it remains active, MyFonts and Bitstream were acquired by Monotype in 2012. It is bleeding on both ends---high-class outfits such as Hoefler, Tobias Frere-Jones, Commercial Type and Our Type run their own shops, and the middle class is scared off by the Monotype monopoly, the business-is-more-important-than-you atmosphere, and the friendlier hunting grounds of Creative Market and similar font truck vendors. Fontacular: monthly sales specials.

EXTERNAL LINKS
MyFonts.com
 [Buy fonts]
MyFonts search
Monotype search
Fontspring search
Google search

INTERNAL LINKS
Font vendors ⦿ Typography ⦿ MyFonts Pages ⦿