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The owner of Helvetica and Times New Roman just bought some emoji
Monotype just bought Swyft Media. Or, a company you probably haven't heard of just bought a company you probably haven't heard of. Monotype, for the uninitiated, is a company that helped revolutionize typesetting at the latter end of the 19th century, and owns typefaces you probably see every day like Helvetica, Times New Roman and Franklin Gothic. And Swyft? It's a startup that creates stickers and emoji. Recently profiled by Fortune, it works with brands to create custom sticker packs for apps like Facebook Messenger and Line. At first glance, an emoji advertising firm and a historic type company might seem an odd couple, but given the rate that stickers are replacing our written words, perhaps it's money well spent. The deal could (according to TechCrunch) cost Monotype up to $27 million -- a small price to pay for staying relevant in our emoji-filled future.
Google Fonts now lets you experiment with typefaces in a free app
Google has a lot of free fonts on offer, but it's hard to know how they'll look on a website without putting them into HTML code or buying a preview tool. It's now much easier to experiment with typefaces, however, as Google Fonts has just integrated a typography app. Designers can click a link to test a given font in a free, lightweight version of Monotype's Typecast; from there, they can try out new color combos, effects, sizes and weights. Those happy with their work can export code and save images, and they can subscribe to Typecast's $29 per month premium service if they need to create style guides or offer live web previews. Page creators only need to visit Google Fonts to start tinkering with their text.
April Fools' Day roundup: Google overload edition
Ah, April 1st. It's that time of the year again when the internet is rife with odd news and pranks. As before, news sites like us end up with a healthy stream of tips throughout April Fools' Day (thanks, by the way), so let us round up some of the best findings for your comedic appetite. Contenders include the usual suspects like Google and ThinkGeek, the former of which dominating the gigglesphere this year with some new "features." We also have some interesting submissions from Hulu, a font company, and probably plenty more to come as the day progresses, so keep watching this space as we add new entries to this post. Right, let the fun commence after the break.
