Monotype Imaging has acquired China Type Design Limited, a typeface design and production company based in Hong Kong.
As a wholly owned subsidiary of Monotype Imaging, China Type will help lead expansion into Asian consumer electronics and printer markets which require scalable, multilingual text solutions.
China Type has been a long-time partner of Monotype Imaging, which previously held 20% ownership of the firm. Over a 20-year period, the companies have collaborated on a wide range of Asian font projects, with recent work involving typefaces for Hewlett-Packard XHTML-based inkjet printers shipping in Japan and China, and East Asian fonts for the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system.
"We're setting a new course with China Type to serve a wide range of industries, from mobile phones to office printers, where in many regions of Asia highly specialized font and text technologies are necessary," said Robert M. Givens, president and chief executive officer of Monotype Imaging. "China Type brings a unique combination of unrivaled design talent and the ability to manage low-cost, high volume font production and quality assurance testing. These capabilities will be instrumental in our strategy to accelerate technology and design solutions to our customers within various parts of Asia in response to rapid, localized economic growth. Establishing a foothold in the region from which we can build out a local support and response structure, in addition to leveraging the design and production benefits that China Type already brings, will be a key to success."
As part of the China Type acquisition, Monotype Imaging has secured an exclusive relationship with Creative Calligraphy Center (CCC), a font production company in Zhuhai, China, with 30 production specialists. When combined with the number of design, production, testing and support specialists at China Type and Monotype Imaging, the roster grows to 78 – nearly double the company's capacity prior to the acquisition.
"Our solid relationship with Monotype Imaging is a valuable asset," said Ricky Chun, who will continue to lead China Type as its managing director. "We look forward to being a part of Monotype Imaging after working closely together for many years on various innovative projects, from improving the display of Chinese characters on cell phones to designing and producing East Asian fonts for popular operating systems."