Morisawa Font Library Now Available Outside Japan
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Morisawa, one of the most prestigious type foundries in Japan, first made its fonts available to an international audience by becoming a Typekit partner last year. And while the 20 fonts available in Typekit were a welcome addition, especially for casual Japanese typesetting needs, they did not provide the various weights and styles needed for designers and publishers outside Japan to produce high-quality publications or identity programs in Japanese.
Now, for the first time, Morisawa is expanding its offering by making over 500 fonts from its library available to users outside Japan. With the announcement of TypeSquare, users anywhere outside Japan can license Morisawa desktop or web fonts directly, using a subscription-based fee structure.
The TypeSquare web site is the portal for font samples, subscriptions and information.
While a basic set of Japanese fonts have long been available to most users – either from the Mac or Windows OS, MS Office, or older InDesign installations (Kozuka font family) – none match the quality and prestige of fonts offered by Morisawa. Morisawa fonts are considered of the highest quality in Japan, where their reputation is based on both their 90+ years in the Japanese font industry and their successful transition from traditional to digital font formats. Their font family Shin Go, for example, is widely used throughout Japan, and up until now was difficult for designers in the U.S. or Europe to obtain.
Typesquare offers almost 400 desktop fonts, and over 500 web fonts, including Korean and Chinese fonts. Various subscription plans are available, and are reasonably priced, starting with desktop fonts as low as $70 per year. Morisawa’s official press release about TypeSquare is available here. For designers, publishers and creative professionals who work on projects for the Asian market, this is most welcome news indeed.
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