Monotype

Monotype is the company that used to make matrices and casting machines which cast type for letterpress compositors. Fonts.com still exists as a descendant of Monotype, but of course now, digital type is provided. Lanston Monotype machines were first built in the late nineteenth century in North America. Soon, a Monotype concern was set up this side of the pond, near Redhill in Surrey.

Only a few individuals and companies still supply the world with type using these machines. Of course, they are all pretty ancient machines now and we are entirely dependent on them and the engineers that service them. You can’t cast type without having the correct matrix, and these were also supplied by Monotype. You needed the exact matrix and they were expensive. If you had the matrix for 12 point Plantin, but needed to cast 14 point, you would need the matrix for 14 point Plantin. Printers generally got their type from a caster to avoid the massive expense of tooling up with a caster plus matrices. Name such as RiscaType, MouldType and Adana would supply this type to the jobbing printers up and down the country and across the world.

Some printing enthusiasts of today have found room to house a Monotype caster – like Mr John Randle at the Whittington Press (and publisher / printer of Matrix), and Ed Denovan (@hellboxletterfoundry on Insta) in Faversham. The most casters I have ever seen in one place belong to Stan Lane at GTS Typesetting.