History

ATypI was founded in 1957 by Charles Peignot (from the French type foundry Deberny & Peignot). Since then, we’ve held an annual conference for our members in a different global city every year.

Since Charles Peignot’s tenure came to an end, other members serving as president of the ATypI board included John Dreyfus, Tage Bolander, Martin Fehle, Ernst-Erich Marhencke, Mark Batty, Jean François Porchez, John D. Berry, José Scaglione, Gerry Leonidas, Carolina Laudon, and now, Crystian Cruz.

Charles Peignot (1897–1983) was director of the Deberny & Peignot foundry in Paris for nearly fifty years. In 1957, with a group of delegates from type manufacturing companies, he founded the Association Typographique Internationale (ATypI), serving as its president for ten years. Throughout his career, Peignot was closely involved in the creation of all the new faces produced by Deberny & Peignot, which later also became a manufacturer of photocomposition discs for the Lumitype phototypesetting machine.

John Dreyfus was an important figure in postwar European type design, as typographical adviser to the British Monotype Corporation in succession to Stanley Morison, at a time when the technology of typesetting was undergoing enormous change; as President of the Association Typographique Internationale at a time when typeface protection was becoming of urgent importance; and as a designer and writer.