Where are typefaces being designed?
These figures use the current Type.lol catalog and may change as records are added or corrected. They describe our catalog, not a census of the type industry. When citing a figure, include the date you accessed this page.
Type.lol tracks 1,314 independent type foundries publishing 18,462 typefaces, and places 1,102 of them in 79 countries.
It cannot place the other 212 (16%), which between them publish 1,905 typefaces. If those foundries were a country they would rank near the top of every table below, so read all of this as a map of what is documented rather than a census of what exists.
United States holds more type foundries than any other country, with 200 publishing 3,063 typefaces, followed by Germany with 142. Foundry count and output do not rank the same way, which is the point of this study: the countries with the most foundries are not the countries whose foundries publish the most each.
- Foundries tracked
- 1,314
- Placed in a country
- 1,102 (83.9%)
- Country unknown
- 212
- Countries represented
- 79
- Active typefaces
- 18,462
- Data basis
- Live catalog data
Countries by number of type foundries
| Rank | Country | Foundries | Typefaces | Typefaces per foundry |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | United States | 200 | 3,063 | 15.2 |
| 2 | Germany | 142 | 1,691 | 11.9 |
| 3 | France | 88 | 1,091 | 12.4 |
| 4 | United Kingdom | 67 | 1,394 | 20.5 |
| 5 | Netherlands | 57 | 737 | 12.9 |
| 6 | Switzerland | 51 | 636 | 12.5 |
| 7 | Spain | 35 | 599 | 17.1 |
| 8 | Japan | 33 | 217 | 6.6 |
| 9 | Indonesia | 28 | 943 | 33.7 |
| 10 | Czech Republic | 24 | 365 | 15.2 |
| 11 | Italy | 23 | 338 | 14.7 |
| 12 | Canada | 22 | 400 | 18.2 |
| 13 | Sweden | 19 | 349 | 18.4 |
| 14 | Argentina | 16 | 482 | 29.5 |
| 15 | Belgium | 15 | 202 | 13.5 |
Type foundries by region
| Region | Foundries | Typefaces | Share of foundries |
|---|---|---|---|
| Europe | 651 | 9,377 | 59.1% |
| North America | 233 | 3,625 | 21.1% |
| Asia | 129 | 2,072 | 11.7% |
| South America | 46 | 1,084 | 4.2% |
| Oceania | 19 | 249 | 1.7% |
| Africa | 14 | 65 | 1.3% |
| Other | 10 | 85 | 0.9% |
Countries publishing the most per foundry
Ranked by mean catalogue size, among countries with at least 10 foundries. A per-foundry rate on a smaller sample describes one catalogue rather than a country.
| Rank | Country | Typefaces per foundry | Foundries in the rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Indonesia | 33.7 | 28 |
| 2 | Argentina | 29.5 | 15 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 20.5 | 66 |
| 4 | Sweden | 18.4 | 19 |
| 5 | Canada | 18.2 | 22 |
| 6 | Spain | 17.1 | 35 |
Type foundries in United States
- P22 Type Foundry
- Brandon Nickerson Studio
- Commercial Type
- Jen Wagner Co.
- Positype
- House Industries
- The Northern Block
- Emigre
Type foundries in Germany
- Designova Fonts
- Hubert Jocham Type
- TypeType Foundry
- HvD Fonts
- Astype Fonts
- IngoFonts
- Stereo Typefaces
- TypeMates
Type foundries in France
- Blaze Type
- Typofonderie
- Production Type
- 205TF
- Black Foundry
- Typothèque Bye Bye Binary
- Velvetyne
- Christophe Badani
Type foundries in United Kingdom
Type foundries in Netherlands
- Typotheque
- Hanoded Fonts
- Vetteletters
- Novo Typo
- Bold Monday
- Characters Font Foundry
- Dutch Type Library
- ReType
Type foundries in Switzerland
Type foundries in Spain
- Resistenza Type Foundry
- Type-Ø-Tones
- W Type Foundry
- Atipo
- Occupant Fonts
- 29Letters
- TypeRepublic
- Emtype Foundry
Type foundries in Japan
How we know this
Each foundry's country comes from its recorded locations, preferring the one marked as headquarters, normalized to a canonical country name. Output counts ACTIVE typefaces only: the catalog also holds deprecated and unreviewed rows, and counting those inflates output by roughly a third and reorders the productivity ranking outright.
Three limits belong with any figure above. 212 foundries have no country on file and sit outside every country table. 270 placed foundries have no catalogue recorded at all, and they sit in the denominator of every per-foundry rate as though they published nothing, when in fact we have not read them. 4 foundries whose catalogue sits exactly on the crawler's per-foundry ceiling are excluded from rates on both sides of the division. Type.lol documents independent foundries by editorial policy, so this is a map of independent type rather than of all type.