Movable Type: Monotype’s New HQ

We overcame our seething envy for just about long enough to ask Monotype’s creative director James Fooks-Bale some serious questions about the philosophy and practical considerations behind the space…

How does Monotype’s ‘personality’ inform the design of the new HQ? 

Monotype has a unique heritage, but at the same time we’re laser-focused on helping to shape what the design, branding, and technology landscapes will be doing or will need in the coming years. Everything we do here attempts to tell a part of this story. Balancing the past 100 years of type in design, with where it’s going over the coming years informed our approach to the environment design. 

The glyph is always the hero. Let the type stand in the foreground; celebrate its details, its silhouette, its ink trap, its subtlety. Our design principles push the type to the foreground, but we also try to hide details in places for the curious. Wherever possible, the other brand ingredients have been kept to a minimum; expressed simply in type and material, such as the wooden corridor laser-etched with several hundred Ms. 

What sort of practical considerations shaped the brief? What sort of working methods is the new office designed to facilitate? 

The Monotype brand has been evolving over the last few years, aspects of which people will have seen if they’ve come to any of our exhibitions, been on Monotype.com recently or received any of our printed pieces such as The Recorder. Having an environment that reflects the change more permanently for the teams, clients, and friends was the brief. Our intentions for this space are threefold: a space to work, to collaborate, and also to exhibit or host talks when possible. 

We needed a flexible working environment. A scalable space to allow for a growth in head-count and more importantly a space for different working environments: open-plan in places, but defined quiet space and areas to spread out and collaborate. 

In the same way that clients place their trust in us, we also believe that no one on their own can fully explore a topic or solve a challenge. It’s when people of different expertise, disciplines, backgrounds, and cultures come together we can find something more meaningful. We collaborated with Ben Adams to challenge us here, take our brand and grow it in a meaningful way for East London. Whilst we’ve recently overhauled our New York and Boston offices and soon our Delhi office, we’ve approached each one in their own way, aiming to reflect the subtleties of the local culture, workplace habits, surrounding environment and architecture.