Is the term ‘foundry’ a proper name for digital companies?
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Font company/font makers/font publisher makes sense to me. “Fontery” was a good try @Andreas Stötzner. We can still tell about history and how type was made in the past without using the word foundry in our profession.
As a non-native speaker “foundry” is a word that at first I directly link to font making nowadays, but it is because I don't link it to anything else. I started to have doubts when I used that same word in Spanish “fundición” just linked to melted metal and metal type (no foundation, which would be “fundación”).
It really feels like a term not up-to-date in Spanish. I thought it would be the same in English. It's great to have a debate and know your opinions, thanks.
I just remember when I talked at my English class about the profession. The teacher said that the first thing she thought of was metal type. Many people think type design/font making is something from the past. Maybe, just maybe, it would help to talk about what we do with current terms.4 -
Maria, I was about to say the same! I agree the confusion is more significant when you use the Spanish word "fundición". I live in an industrial area where quite a lot of companies build heavy machinery and most of them either have a foundry department or outsource this task. Anytime I mention the word "fundición" I have to explain what I mean exactly, which in the end is not a bad way to spread and make our activity known in a time when many people still think that fonts are "inside their computers" and don't ever wonder how they got there (believe me, I have had to explain this many times...)On the other hand, in the case of font company/font makers/font publisher, we would have the same problem with the word "fuente", wouldn't we? It is a Spanish adaptation for font, the meaning of which is not related at all with type making.1
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I don't mind digital type people using the word foundry, although it seems a little pretentious. Language evolves. Words get their meaning from how people see fit to use them, not from the dictionary. That said, I don't think I've ever used "foundry" to describe myself or my business. The terms I use are type designer and font developer, which I think more precisely describe what I do. Seems more like makeotf is the foundry.6
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> As a non-native speaker “foundry” is a word that at first I directly link to font making nowadays
That sounds like a feature, not a bug.
As for terms for the same in other languages, as an Armenian always wrestling with contemporary terminology, I would opine that literal translation is something to swat your collar at.
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In the early 1980s, when most of my work was in design for the music industry, there was a great discussion about whether to keep the word “record” when referring to the new Compact Disc format. I thought there was no compelling reason to change it, as the noun record, itself, carried no implications for format. Moreover, it was a “big” word with Latin and Medieval roots that had many definitions. But at a meeting of the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), where I participated on a panel on the subject, the marketing people prevailed and a recommendation was issued to relegate the “record” to references to LPs (oddly, not to 78s, EPs, or 45s). CDs were to referred to by their own name. One argument was that it lent itself to international use, and that has proven to be true. No one in Germany, for example, uses the word “schallplatten” to describe CDs, but I can’t see why they don’t.
This was all nonsense in my view—a record is a record is a record. Others apparently felt similarly. After all, the ancient company Deutsche Grammophon still uses its name, even though they no longer make products for gramophones. Thinking along those lines, I see no reason why the word “foundry” can’t be used broadly, if one so desires. The term “printer” used to be a very broad one. In English and other languages it included all the roles we now refer to as “graphic designer,” a term that appeared first in a 1922 newspaper article by no less than W.A. Dwiggins.
But “foundry” isn’t like “graphic design,” which needed to become specific once its practitioners left the printing house. And we don’t need the “digital” qualifier, either. The few metal typefoundries that exist are now the remote outliers, the ones that need a qualifier (“metal”).
Don’t throw away good and useful words! Their replacements are usually literary junk and they demean the power of language to adapt to most circumstances.
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Yes Georg, literary publishing is a good comparison, in that the business is divided into three major revenue categories: Authoring/Design, Publishing, and Distribution/Retailing.
Although of course those can be combined or further split.0 -
"Font" is derived from "fount" "a complete set of type of one style and one size". Unless we collectively agree to ditch the use of "font" there can be no argument for changing the word "foundry" the words are inextricably married. It ain't gonna happen!
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I started my business with the snappy dotcom name “ShinnType” (note trendy intercap).
Since updated to plain old “Shinntype”.
But on the official documents I wanted something more, well, official-sounding, hence “Shinn Type Foundry Inc.”
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It's interesting, I'm pretty sure that nobody in the phototype/cold type days called themselves a foundry. My recollection is that use of the word in relation to making type seemed to fade away with metal type, but was then picked up again when people started making fonts on personal computers in the '90s.6
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The photo people all called themselves typesetters or type houses.2
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Sure, but what about the people that made the typefaces/fonts that the typesetters used (e.g., ITC, VGC, etc.)? I'd bet if you perused back issues of U&lc. from the '70s you would only find the term foundry used in an historical context, not in the context of contemporary type making. I'm not saying it's wrong to use the term for digital type, just that it hasn't been in continuous use by type makers. Not a big deal, just interesting.3
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One of the meanings of “fuente” in the Spanish dictionary is linked to typography. However I agree that's not the first meaning people will think of. Maybe type company/type makers/type publisher (compañía de tipografía/creador de tipografía/editor de tipografía) could work too.Juan said:On the other hand, in the case of font company/font makers/font publisher, we would have the same problem with the word "fuente", wouldn't we? It is a Spanish adaptation for font, the meaning of which is not related at all with type making.0 -
I guess that is a late addition or an update of its meaning according to new uses, but cannot tell it for sure. In any case, I am in favour of letting the language update itself and evolve to cover new uses and new times. The word I knew for font was "póliza" with has also other meanings not related to type making, and is not widely used other than in specialized books.María Ramos said:One of the meanings of “fuente” in the Spanish dictionary is linked to typography.Going back to the term foundry, I propose "factoría tipográfica" in Spanish. I am not sure whether the similar "type factory" in English conveys the same exact meaning. But the latin root "facere" (to make) from which the word "factoría" –and factory– comes from makes a lot of sense to me. I suspect there might be a difference of scale in English (a native speaker could confirm this). Is Spanish at least, "factoria" is a word that referes to a place where things are made regardless of its size I think.1 -
Mark, your point about phototype is well taken, but I believe there were significant differences in how type was made then and now. In phototype, those responsible for drawing letters were strictly draftsmen, and nearly all of them were trained as letterers. They played no role in any of the “foundry” activities, the justification or manufacturing of the fonts, all of which was done by technicians. You could say the same, of course, about Dwiggins or van Krimpen or Zapf, but they were not typefounders, either; rather, they worked on contract for typefounders.
Today, people like you and me do all of the work, some of which might be called lettering, some might be called encoding, some might be called justifying, and so on. Taken all together and in its historical context, “typefounding” is a pretty accurate and inclusive name for what we do. If someone wishes to call their company a “type works” or “type company,” they are free to do so, but if one were to describe their work, “typefounding” would be the right word, better than any other, I think. Of course, I’m speaking only of English usage.
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I've got it! Maybe we should just use the word "TypeDrawer"!
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@Scott-Martin Kosofsky :
Right, but, for example, VGC and Alphabet Innovations made (manufactured) fonts for headline setting machines, but they never called themselves type founders. My point is that terms like "foundry" and "typefounding" were virtually obsolete and exclusively associated with making metal type before desktop font makers adopted them. I would also suggest that the terms were adopted mainly for marketing reasons by way of association and analogy. Again, I think it's fine. I'm just trying to point out that our use of the terms now is a revival, not due to continual usage by the industry.5 -
Mark, I believe there may be certain historical factors that explain the hiatus in the use of the term “foundry.” When phototype first came into widespread commercial use, in the early 1950s, metal type was still dominant, whether it was machine set or cast as individual letters for hand composition, and the use of “foundry” by photocomposition machine makers (which included Linotype and Monotype) would have met with resistance. Furthermore, some of the companies involved—Lumitype/Photon, Hell Digiset, Compugraphic, Varityper, and others—had no history with metal type and might have thought it better to position themselves as something new, emphasizing the term “composition system,” which had a connotation of economic efficiency.
We are really talking about two very different things when we speak of phototype: composition systems (which had kinship with both metal composition systems as well as today’s digital font world) and headline setters, which were simply lettering machines that worked from film strips placed onto custom photo-enlargers. It’s telling that the #1 U.S. company selling photo-set headline type didn’t use the word “type” at all in its name, but was rather “Photo-Lettering, Inc.” Curiously, in the current era, “type” is in and “lettering” is out, relegated to work done by hand on paper. I suspect that’s because everything is organized into fonts, whether for text or for headline.
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And the funny thing is, as type designers and digital font developers (or type founders if you will), we are not even creating anything physical. We are dealing purely in information. When we make a digital font, we are encoding instructions for a computer to follow. The only reason we still use terms like "type" and "font" is that its end-use function and appearance is essentially the same as when we were casting metal type. The connection between the words and the technology behind them is practically irrelevant.1
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Another point: From the era of photocomposition until the advent of PostScript type, when the metal type foundries had folded or were on their last legs, each machine manufacturer made its own fonts, as each had its own proprietary systems. There was, therefore, no separation of the type making process. This included types licensed by ITC, which began in 1970, who furnished each manufacturer with very large (250 pt) paper prints that they would photograph or scan. In the early digital era, there began to appear contract digitizers, such as URW, but I don’t believe they provided fully made, final products, at least not to everyone.
And so, during that period, the term “foundry” would not have had much legitimate application, not as I believe it does today. Craig’s point about plumbers no longer working in lead pipes is precisely parallel. There are hundreds, even thousands, of other words with ancient etymologies that are no longer used literally. Take, for example, the word “thug” (which I just read in regard to a certain political leader). Originally, it was a Hindi name for a member of a religious organization of robbers and assassins in India, who were devotees of the goddess Kali. Nowadays, well . . . you know.
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There is something rootless about digital culture, so we need a little high touch to offset the high tech, and foundry connects us with our storied past.
So much emphasis on distressed and script types these past 20 years. It didn’t go away when grunge/deconstruction went out of fashion.
Phototype makers wanted to dissociate themselves from “hot” type—for marketing reasons. But they were still heavily invested in tactile culture though; every week as an ad agency art director in the 1970s and 80s I used to get a visit from several type house sales reps, dropping off a job and/or new specimen booklets from ITC, Berthold, Compugraphic, etc. And U&lc, a big, beautiful “newspaper” from ITC, in the mail.
Letraset, of course, was an extremely hands-on medium.5 -
"Foundry" seemed to come back into fashion around the time Edison bulbs and waxed moustaches did. And maybe for the same reasons.
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Thanks for all the insightful comments and opinions. I guess it’s a matter of personal choice to use the term “foundry” or not. I just thought it was worth bringing up a debate about it.2
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And I'm pleased that you raised the issue Maria, it has generated an interesting discussion and brought up a lot of fond (not font) memories along the way. I remember the early days of ITC, those 250pt master prints were not what we would expect in today's technology, required a lot of cleaning up. Guess it provided a job for us who were nimble with a brush and ruling pen. Did I hear somebody say what's a ruling pen?
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This discussion has reminded me of an important difference between the kind of font one would order from ATF or Kelsey and a TrueType font file. If one wanted to typeset an entire book, a single 20-a font wouldn't have enough letters in it to do the job, one would have to buy a bigger one.
So a .TTF file isn't a finite collection of letters that can be re-used after one finishes with a given document, it's an endless supply of as many letters as you want.
So maybe we should be calling them TrueType matrix-case files?
Of course, the precedent was already set in the phototypesetting era; the negatives with letter shapes on them were called fonts... I think, but I could be wrong.
And, of course, type designers can certainly call their businesses type design studios instead of typefoundries; that term existed in the metal era.
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Well, any foundry-metal type cast at text sizes would almost certainly have been put up in fonts with more like 40–50a in quantity, not 20 (which would have been way too limiting).
But your point is still well taken. Depending upon how many pages on a form, and to what extent a shop needed to hold the galleys or could produce electros and redistribute for re-use, etc., a single font would likely not be enough for serious use.
It was a whole different market dynamic when type was a physical product that wore out.
Still, sets of hot-metal matrices were sold as “fonts” as well, and did not have the same limitations.
The use of the term “foundry” may have waxed and waned, but “font” has been pretty consistently used to describe the basic practical, usable, and transactional form of a typeface, even as that form has evolved.
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At least we don’t have to explain the difference between foundries and typefaceries.4
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Well perhaps this is the time we purists should be discussing the use of the word font as it is currently and most commonly used; to denote the difference between typefaces as opposed to its true meaning. I avoid the use of font except when discussing type with non-professionals who probably would not know or appreciate the difference. If a spade is a spade (and not a shovel) then a typeface is a typeface and a font is merely one iteration of possibly very many iterations of a typeface. I guess the size aspect of an individual font is out the window as digital typefaces are scaleable in today's technology.
Having said that I do like the expression typefaceries, Nick.
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After 10 minutes explaining myself to the lady at the Heathrow customs,
she finally get it and say: "ohhh, so you make fonts.... for the computer".
I know it's an overly simplification, but its one normal that people can understand.
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… and then she confiscated your laptop before boarding?PabloImpallari said:…
she finally get it and say: "ohhh, so you make fonts.... for the computer".
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So then we are all a Fontorium ;-)0
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