International Typeface Corporation

The International Typeface Corporation (ITC) is a type manufacturer founded in New York in 1970 by Aaron Burns, Herb Lubalin, and Edward Rondthaler. The company is one of the world's first foundries to have no history in the production of metal type.

History

The company was founded to design, license and market typefaces for filmsetting and computer set types internationally. The company has issued both new designs and revivals of older or classic faces, invariably re-cut to be suitable for digital typesetting use and produced in families of different weights. Although it is claimed that the designers took care to preserve the style and character of the original typefaces, several ITC revivals, such as ITC Bookman and ITC Garamond in particular, have received criticism that the end result was related in name only to the original faces.

ITC's revival designs frequently follow a formulary of increased x-height, multiple weights from light to ultra bold, multiple widths and unusual ligature combinations, sometimes with alternate characters. Critics sometimes complain that, while the dramatically higher x-height increased legibility in smaller point sizes, in normal text sizes the extreme height of the lowercase characters imparted a commercial, subjective voice to texts. In recent years several new revivals have been praised for showing more historical accuracy, and for not increasing the x-height to the dramatic heights of earlier ITC typeface revivals.

U&lc magazine

The company published "U&lc" (Upper and Lower Case), a typographic magazine dedicated to showcasing their traditional and newer typefaces in particularly creative ways, originally edited and designed by Herb Lubalin until his death in May, 1981. Because of its extraordinary blend of typographic design, illustration and cartoons (sometimes by world-renowned artists and cartoonists such as Lou Myers), verse and prose extolling the virtues of well-designed type, as well as contributions by amateur or semi-professional typographers, the magazine was avidly read by type enthusiasts and sought after by collectors the world over. The magazine is now available as an online edition, with an archive of issues from volume 24 (Fall 1997) onwards .

Acquisitions and mergers

In 1986 the company was acquired by Esselte Letraset, who had taken over Letraset, originally makers of the first dry transfer lettering, and later to become developers of new typefaces for filmsetting and computer applications. In 2000, Agfa Monotype Corporation announced the acquisition of the capital stock of International Typeface Corporation (ITC) from Esselte. The transaction included ITC’s complete library of over 1600 typefaces, all typeface subscriber and distributor agreements, the itcfonts.com Web site, and typographic software. In November 2005 the company was incorporated as Monotype Imaging, with a focus on the company's traditional core competencies of typographic design and professional printing. Famous contemporary typographers associated with the company include Adrian Frutiger, Hermann Zapf and Matthew Carter.

References

*Blackwell, Lewis. "20th Century Type". Yale University Press: 2004. ISBN 0-300-10073-6.
*Fiedl, Frederich, Nicholas Ott and Bernard Stein. "Typography: An Encyclopedic Survey of Type Design and Techniques Through History". Black Dog & Leventhal: 1998. ISBN 1-57912-023-7.

External links

* [http://www.itcfonts.com/ ITC homepage]
* [http://www.monotypeimaging.com/aboutus/pr_display.aspx?year=2000&pr=45 Agfa Monotype Corporation Acquires International Typeface Corporation]
* [http://www.monotypeimaging.com/ Monotype Imaging]
* [http://www.itcfonts.com/Ulc/IndexofPrintedUlc/index.htm U&lc – Upper and Lower Case magazine]