With its name borrowed from Adobe’s ground-breaking PostScript™ page description language, Lineto was founded in 1993 by Cornel Windlin and Stephan Müller as a common label for their individual type design activities. Initially releasing through the FontFont label, Lineto.com was set up in 1998 to distribute their typefaces on the world wide web, making it Switzerland’s first digital type foundry trading online.

Windlin and Müller invited a number of friends – all of them upcoming and accomplished designers in their own right, with shared sensibilities and interests – to publish their designs alongside: Dimitri Bruni and Manuel Krebs of NORM, Urs & Jürg Lehni and Rafael Koch, Martha Stutteregger, Jonas Williamsson and Laurent Benner of Reala, Marco Walser and Valentin Hindermann of Elektrosmog, Jon Hares, James Goggin, Nico Schweizer and Masahiko Nakamura.

Lineto’s fonts gained immediate acclaim and in the following years, the platform continuously grew, adding Laurenz Brunner, Aurèle Sack and Kobi Benezri to its roster of designers and re-launching with Jürg Lehni’s much-lauded new website in 2004.

Since then, a new generation of designers joined the operation, further developing the concise library of original typefaces and broadening its range, reflecting the talents of a diverse group of contributing creatives. Today, it connects an illustrious family of independently working designers and art directors, from the US to Chile, the UK, France, Sweden, Norway and all the way to Ukraine, not forgetting Taiwan, South Korea and, of course, Switzerland – with the youngest being 20 and the oldest 88 years old.

We are graphic designers, occasionally focussing on type for use in our own work; the library primarily reflects our own tastes and obsessions, it’s what we use ourselves. Drawing from our passion for creating type, we have broadened our competences to serve the widest range of users, way beyond our own community of designers focussed on editorial design and publishing.

Today, we deliver fresh product to both small studios in the remotest parts of the world and to leading global corporations from any sector, anywhere, providing tailor-made type solutions executed to the highest standards. Among them are Spotify, AirBnB, Google, Slack, Nest, Nothing, Logitech, HP, Polestar, Toyota, Nike, Adidas, the BBC, HBO, Netflix, Eurosport, Condé Nast, Forbes, W Hotels, Vitra, Bang & Olufsen, Whole Foods, 3M, Johnson & Johnson, Black Rock, PayPal, Morningstar, Standard & Poor, Stella McCartney, Hermès, Prada, Lanvin, Ermenegildo Zegna, Puig, Lemaire, H&M, Timberland, Fenty, Charli XCX, Kanye West, Pink Floyd, Depeche Mode, David Beckham, Parco, MoMA, Tate Museums, Louvre, Sydney Opera House, Kunstmuseum Basel and, let’s not forget, Playboy magazine (when it was still in print), and many, many, many more.

First and foremost, we see type design as an artistic domain, albeit one that is exposed to the many challenges of ever-changing, rapid technological developments. As much as type needs to tickle the mind and please the eye, today it needs to faultlessly function as software, day in and day out.

Approaching our eclectic aesthetic interests with a contemporary perspective, Lineto is dedicated to the research, design, development and production of fresh and original typefaces, unique in concept, exquisite in design, and flawless in production. And, as we believe, inimitable in result.

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