Akira Kobayashi of Japan
Born: Niigata, Japan, 1960
Akira Kobayashi studied at Musashino Art College in Tokyo from 1979 to 1983, and six years later followed up with a calligraphy course at the London College of Printing. Akira’s type design career began at Sha-Ken Co., a phototypesetting manufacturer, until 1989. His next three years were at Jiyu-Kobo, Ltd. where he designed the Japanese font Hiragino Mincho and 6-weight Latin variation Hiragino Roman for Dainippon Screen Co. From 1993 to 1997 he worked at TypeBank Co., where he designed Latin alphabets to accompany all 17 of their Japanese fonts.
Since 1997, Akira has worked as a freelance type designer, and won a plethora of awards: The 1996 Morisawa Contest awarded him an Honourable Mention for his Socia Oldstyle. He won the Type Directors Club’s first type design competition in 1998 with ITC Woodland; Best of Category and Best of Show with Clifford at the first U&lc type design competition; and the Gold Prize of the Linotype Contest 2000 for his Conrad family.
Akira has now become Type Director at Linotype Library GmbH in Bad Homburg, Germany.
Fonts by Akira Kobayashi
FF Acanthus, FF Acanthus Open, FF Acanthus Text, Calcite, Calcite, FF Clifford, Conrad, ITC Japanese Garden Ornaments Pi, ITC Japanese Garden Ornaments, TX Lithium, ITC Luna, ITC Luna, Metro Office, Neuzeit Office, Optima Nova, Palatino Sans, Palatino Sans Informal, ITC Scarborough, ITC Scarborough, ITC Seven Treasures Ornaments, ITC Seven Treasures Ornaments, TX Signal Signifier, ITC Silvermoon, ITC Silvermoon, Skid Row, Skid Row, Skid Row, Times Europa Office, Trump Mediaeval Office, ITC Vineyard, ITC Woodland, ITC Woodland, Zapfino Extra
Browse all fonts by Akira Kobayashi
Activities
Related Links
• ATypI: Language, Culture, Type, edited by John D. Berry
• bukva:raz! jury: Akira Kobayashi
• Les Temps Typographiques: Interview de Akira Kobayashi (French)
• Linotype Library Designers: Akira Kobayashi
• PingMag: Akira Kobayashi, Transcending Typographic Boundaries, by Ian Lynam
Please note: This is not an official page of Akira Kobayashi and e-mailing us is not a good way to contact him. Corrections welcomed.
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