Monotype (Nasdaq: TYPE) and Alibaba today unveiled the Alibaba Sans
typeface. Designed for Alibaba Group, a multinational leader in
e-commerce, retail and technology, the typeface family helps unify the
company’s branding across its vast international apps, platforms and
websites. With this launch, Alibaba is authorizing all merchants and
brands free access to the font system to enable them to express their
brand identity and create businesses that are beautiful and simple.
Highly legible, energetic and expressive, the Alibaba Sans typeface
family was designed by Akira
Kobayashi of the Monotype
Studio.
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The Alibaba Sans typeface family helps unify Alibaba Group’s branding across its vast international apps, platforms and websites. (Graphic: Business Wire)
The Alibaba Sans family consists of 11 weights, and was designed to be
aesthetically pleasing from small to large sizes across any device or
location—from display screens, across multiple office buildings on the
company campus, to e-commerce marketplaces. The typeface family supports
172 languages, and was designed with a strong emphasis on numerals and
currency symbols, given the importance to the millions of merchants on
Alibaba’s vast worldwide digital ecosystem.
Monotype will be showcasing the design at Alibaba’s UCAN
Design Conference 2019, taking place April 27-28, 2019, in Hangzhou,
China. Mr. Kobayashi will be delivering a keynote presentation titled,
“Creating the Visible Voice of Top Brands,” on April 27, 2019,
10:30-10:50 a.m. local time.
With a mission “to make it easy to do business anywhere,” Alibaba Group
helps connect buyers to sellers through its platforms. With its
operations now spanning e-commerce, cloud computing, payment, logistics,
digital media, and entertainment and innovation initiatives, Alibaba
strives to provide nearly 700 million users and tens of millions of
merchants worldwide on its platforms with a consistent look and feel.
The Alibaba Sans typeface fulfills that mission by giving businesses
fonts that allow them to easily create on-brand campaigns.
“Monotype understood our unique challenges and delivered a typeface that
will take us to the next level in our branding efforts. We really
appreciate their partnership as a true expert and extension of our
team,” said Chris Tung, Chief Marketing Officer of Alibaba Group. “We
would like to make this new typeface an inclusive resource for all
partners and customers globally, and for free. True to our group
mission, we are taking a concrete step forward to help small and
medium-sized enterprises participate in the digital economy through the
power of design.”
“Alibaba Group faced a common but significant branding challenge, in
that it needed to convey its brand values across a wide range of
environments, both physically and digitally,” said Akira Kobayashi. “It
was a pleasure to work with a team so dedicated to the importance of
type, and help Alibaba Group realize the potential that a custom
typeface has for unifying a brand.”
About Monotype
Monotype empowers creative minds to build and
express authentic brands through design, technology and expertise.
Further information is available at www.monotype.com.
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Monotype and Mosaic are trademarks of Monotype Imaging Inc. registered
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other jurisdictions. All other trademarks are the property of their
respective owners. ©2019 Monotype Imaging Holdings Inc. All rights
reserved.
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