Most of us can't get through a day without reading something in Helvetica or Times New Roman. Monotype, the global type foundry that controls those and many other iconic fonts, recently completed its new London office—and its products took on a very visible architectural role.
Ben Adams Architects designed the U.K. headquarters—one of 15 scattered across the world—with the firm's craft in mind. Inside the office, you're greeted with letters—lots and lots of letters. Along with selections of the firm's famous fonts, like Helvetica, Gill Sans, and Times New Roman, letters from Monotype's 20,000-font-strong archive dot its walls.
When employees and visitors enter the 3,500-square-foot Shoreditch office, they're welcomed by a giant letter "M," a motif which follows them around the office. Designed to flexibly fit 32 workstations as well as collaborative spaces, the office's central feature is a birch plywood tunnel etched with 1,500 different "M" logos in 750 different typefaces from the company's robust archives.
