Akira Kobayashi

Akira Kobayashi was started his carrier as type designer at Sha-Ken Company, Ltd., a Japanese manufacturer of phototypesetting machines, where he knew the importance to learn more about Latin typefaces. He finally decided to go to London to further his typographic education.

After going back to Japan, Kobayashi was involved in the design of Latin part of Japanese typefaces for TypeBank and other Japanese type foundries. During this term he was awarded at lots of competitions held in Europe and the United States.

In the spring of 2001, Kobayashi was named type director of Linotype. Since then, he has worked with Hermann Zapf and Adrian Frutiger in reinterpreting their classic types. You can see a good example of Kobayashi’s design for Typebank in Yokobuto Mincho family. The Latin part of the family is most reputed one among lots of fine works he has done for TypeBank.

Akira Kobayashi