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       Laurens Janszoon Coster (1405–1484)

The Dutch Type Library (dtl) is developer and publisher of exclusive high-quality digital typefaces and a producer of professional software for the font production, for example dtl FontMaster. Established in the spring of 1990, it was the first of its kind in the Netherlands and it operates on an international basis ever since. dtl was founded by the type designer, researcher, and Senior Lecturer Dr. Frank E. Blokland.
        The Netherlands have always played an important role in the development of printing types. Composing and printing with movable type was probably practised in Holland before Johann Gutenberg (circa 1400–1468) brought the casting and printing process to perfection. The mythical Laurens Janszoon Coster (1405–1484), or another Dutch printer, whose name is unknown, may have been the inventor.

       Fontproduction at dtl

During the seventeenth century, the Netherlands were the centre of the typographic world. The Dutch typefaces of the Golden Age introduced something new. Stanley Morison wrote about this in On Type Designs, Past and Present (London, 1925): ‘The importance of the Dutch revision was that it created a letter that was big on the body as well as stronger in colour than the sixteenth-century old face.’

       Working drawings for the ikarus system

The best-known Dutch punchcutter from the Golden Age is Christopher van Dijck, whose designs were employed successfully by the famous Elzevir publishing firm in Leiden. In the twentieth century, the Netherlands gave us such famous type designers as Sjoerd H. de Roos (dtl  Nobel, Zilvertype), Jan van Krimpen (dtl Haarlemmer, dtl Romulus, dtl Sheldon), Chris Brand (dtl Albertina) and Gerard Unger (Demos, Swift, dtl Argo).

The Dutch Type Library continues the tradition of its illustrious predecessing Dutch type foundries by producing and publishing exclusive typefaces of the highest possible quality. This standard not only applies to the type designs but to their digital descriptions as well.
        dtl supplies principally all of the actual digital formats but also legacy ones, including PostScript Type 1, TrueType, and OpenType, for all current operating systems, such as macOS, Windows 11, Linux, and Unix.

The Dutch Type Library was commissioned to produce corporate identity typefaces for the European Union, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Rotterdam and The Hague’s municipal museum. Moreover, dtl supplied company typefaces to the New York Stock Exchange, Germany’s Phoenix Television Broadcasting Company and zdfkultur, The Diamond Trading Company (formely De Beers), Emerson, Taylor Nelson Sofres, Amnesty International usa, Emerson, F. van Lanschot Bankers, The Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Amsterdam Historic Museum, Frans Hals Museum, the Dutch Open-air Museum, Teylers Museum, Museum Plantin-Moretus in Antwerp, the Royal Library in Brussels, the Royal Museum for Central Africa (Tervuren, Belgium), Oxford University Press, the Academisch Ziekenhuis Groningen (Groningen Teaching Hospital), Koninklijke Bam Groep, Heerema Group, Radio Nederland Wereldopmroep (World Service), Agis Groep (health insurer), Keflavik International Airport, Finland’s most popular newspaper Helsingin Sonamat, Georg Thieme Verlag, and companies, banks and museums all over the world.

        dtl Fleischmann used in a children’s book published by Querido

       dtl VandenKeere
       applied on a book
       cover

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Last update: 18 November 2024. Copyright © Dutch Type Library, 1998–2024. All rights reserved

dtl Headquarters | Zwaenenstede 49 | 5221 kc ’s-Hertogenbosch | The Netherlands
dtl Studio | Daliënwaerd 71 | 5221 ke ’s-Hertogenbosch | The Netherlands
phone: +31 (0)73 614 95 36 | fax: +31 (0)73 613 98 23 | e-mail: info@dutchtypelibrary.com