Monotype Unveils Alibaba Sans, a Custom Brand Typeface for the Alibaba Group

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. Follow Monotype on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Monotype and Mosaic are trademarks of Monotype Imaging Inc. registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and may be registered in certain other jurisdictions. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. ©2019 Monotype Imaging Holdings Inc. All rights reserved.

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