Preface

ATypI is the world’s preeminent typographic organization, representing typographers, type designers, font engineers, and educators from all countries. It was founded in the 1950s during a time of commercial and technological change, with the goal of protecting the rights of the designers and manufacturers of typefaces – an ongoing and unresolved struggle.

The impetus for founding such an organization was the spread of phototypesetting technology and the subsequent ease of copying typeface designs – something that had been done since the earliest days of hand-set type, but that was about to become much easier to do. Charles Peignot, director of the Paris type foundry Deberny & Peignot, saw an international organization as a way of preserving both the traditions of the craft and the practical business of manufacturing and selling type.

Since then, the development of ATypI has embodied, mirrored, and influenced the development of typography for the last seven decades. From an organization focused on Western European type and typography, it has grown to become a forum and a resource for type design and development around the world, in all the languages and scripts of the world.

I was commissioned to write a history of ATypI in 2018, with backing from the association’s Board of Directors. The initial research involved discovering lost or misplaced records, finding the few remaining people who remembered ATypI’s beginnings, and delving into sometimes dry and often incomplete records such as the minutes of Board and committee meetings. I have benefited from conversations and correspondence with long-time ATypI members, from on-site research into archives at the University of Reading and the Bibliothèque Forney in Paris, and from memoirs written by some of the participants. The story is not complete for the first two or three decades, but I’ve done my best to patch the pieces together. I always welcome new information, insights, and corrections.

It has taken until the spring of 2026 to complete the project. I first researched and wrote the initial chapter, explaining how and why the association was created, and I gave a talk about the project at the 2019 ATypI conference in Tokyo. But ATypI, like so many other organizations, was clobbered by the Covid-19 pandemic, and the project got temporarily derailed. At the first in-person conference after the pandemic, in Paris in 2023, I gave another talk, about where ATypI came from and why.

Many people have contributed to this effort, beginning with Gerry Leonidas, who as President of ATypI commissioned me to write a history of the association. Others who have helped along the way include, in no particular order: Jean François Porchez, Erich Alb, Alfred Hoffmann, Dafi Kühne, Mark Barratt, Sue Walker, Roger Black, Carol Wahler, Paul Shaw, Yvonne Schwemer-Scheddin, Alice Savoie, Allison Merrill, Ferdinand Ulrich, Isabelle Jammes, Nicole Croix, Cynthia Batty, Mark Batty, José Scaglione, Wolfgang Hartmann, Jost Hochuli, Mme. Martine Boussoussou, Petr van Blokland, Sharon Moncur, Shelley Gruendler, David Lemon, Henrik Birkvig, Torben Wilhelmsen, Laurence Penney, Matthew Carter, Robin Kinross, Nada Abdallah. In addition, my thanks go to all the people who contributed to the GoFundMe campaign that I set up in 2025 to fund the research and writing of this history.

I have undoubtedly forgotten people whom I should thank, and I hope they will forgive me. It’s been a long journey.

John D. Berry
Former President, 2007–2013
Association Typographique Internationale
May 2026