Terminal Design Inc.

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Terminal Design Inc. Digital Type and lettering design. Font software development. Hence the name. All designed, drawn and spaced by me. I named almost all of them myself as well.
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Terminal Design was founded in 1990 by me, James Montalbano, and is located on the terminal moraine in Brooklyn, NY. I originally specialized in custom typeface, lettering and logo design, and have been fortunate to have my work commissioned by some well known publications and companies. Doing that custom work allowed me time to develop a retail font library which has grown to over 800 individual

fonts. My professional career began as a public school industrial arts teacher, trying to keep my young students from crushing their hands in the platen presses. Having to teach wood shop was the last straw and I quit and went to graduate school. After receiving an M.Ed in Technology Education, I studied lettering with Ed Benguiat, began drawing type and working in the wild world of New York City type shops and magazine art departments. My career continued as a magazine art director, moving on to become a design director responsible for 20 trade magazines whose subject matter no one should be required to remember. I was talked into designing pharmaceutical packaging, but that only made me ill. When my nausea subsided, I started Terminal Design, Inc. and I haven’t been sick since. Since 1995 I have been working on the Clearview type system for text, display, roadway and interior guide signage. In 2004 the 13 font ClearviewHwy family was granted interim approval by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) for use on federal roadways. It has now been over 10 years and when it gets granted permanent approval is anyone’s guess. And judging by recent event that will never happen. My work has been featured in The New York Times, Print, Creative Review, ID, Wired, and is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. I’m a past president of the Type Directors Club (TDC), and have taught typography at Pratt Institute and type design at School of Visual Arts (SVA) and at Parsons School of Design in New York City.

This has been under development for quite awhile. Not sure I have the stamina to finish it.
26/12/2022

This has been under development for quite awhile. Not sure I have the stamina to finish it.

25/10/2022

Latin Small Letter Closed Reversed Open E.
= closed reversed epsilon
• lower-mid central rounded vowel

This previously neglected design gets some development
28/07/2022

This previously neglected design gets some development

I pulled this design out of the closet after years of neglect. Something about it drew me back.
04/07/2022

I pulled this design out of the closet after years of neglect. Something about it drew me back.

I know this is not what the IPA alphabet was originally intended for, but I could not resist!
10/04/2022

I know this is not what the IPA alphabet was originally intended for, but I could not resist!

Making progess on this yet to be named design
07/04/2022

Making progess on this yet to be named design

IPA support in this latest thing
29/03/2022

IPA support in this latest thing

Once you start it is hard to stop
09/03/2022

Once you start it is hard to stop

This new thing continues...
20/02/2022

This new thing continues...

Something new on the drawing board...
01/02/2022

Something new on the drawing board...

Never underestimate the ignorance of the end user when designing connecting scripts.
09/01/2022

Never underestimate the ignorance of the end user when designing connecting scripts.

16/11/2021
16/08/2020

Black Lives Matter

13/08/2020

My Covid madness continues...

06/08/2020

Something my Covid addled mind has been working on during the lock down. Any thoughts? If I finish it should I name it Covid? 19? or What an as***le Dr Trump?

17/03/2020

Keeping myself busy drawing IPA additions...

16/03/2020

An update to a design I created at the beginning of my Type Design career.

18/12/2019
ClearviewHWY | Highway Road Sign Fonts

The redesigned ClearviewHwy website is now up and running:
https://www.clearviewhwy.com

This website chronicles the development of the Clearview Typeface System by Meeker & Associates, Inc. and Terminal Design, Inc., and independently studied by various university transportation research centers around the country.

04/10/2019

Spotted yesterday on the R Train. 1970s New York Style Typography!
Be afraid, be very afraid!

07/08/2019

I originally designed ITC Orbon in 1995. I decided to revisit it and add some language support that was missing from the original.

03/08/2019
The Birth of the Semicolon

The Birth of the Semicolon

The semicolon has long been a source of both enthusiasm and disdain. But how did this peculiar punctuation mark come about?

11/07/2019

Some unreleased versions of Terminal Design typefaces expanded to support IPA. Maybe someday.

19/06/2019
Terminal Design Catalog | Type Specimen Book – The Typeface designs of James Montalbano

The Terminal Design Type Catalog finally has it own website:
https://catalog.terminaldesign.com

The Terminal Design Type Catalog Type catalogs are, by their nature, always out of date. This one is. It contains almost everything I have designed up to the winter of 2015, but these catalogs take time and I couldn’t stop designing type while it was in production, so there had to be some sort of ...

20/03/2019

Look for this ad in the upcoming Typography Issue of "Eye" magazine.

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Opening Hours

Monday 09:00 - 17:00
Tuesday 09:00 - 17:00
Wednesday 09:00 - 17:00
Thursday 09:00 - 17:00
Friday 09:00 - 17:00

Telephone

+17182467085

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Our Story

Terminal Design was founded in 1990 by me, James Montalbano, and is located on the terminal moraine in Brooklyn, NY. Hence the name. I originally specialized in custom typeface, lettering and logo design, and have been fortunate to have my work commissioned by some well known publications and companies. Doing that custom work allowed me time to develop a retail font library which has grown to over 800 individual fonts. All designed, drawn and spaced by me. I named almost all of them myself as well. My professional career began as a public school industrial arts teacher, trying to keep my young students from crushing their hands in the platen presses. Having to teach wood shop was the last straw and I quit and went to graduate school. After receiving an M.Ed in Technology Education, I studied lettering with Ed Benguiat, began drawing type and working in the wild world of New York City type shops and magazine art departments. My career continued as a magazine art director, moving on to become a design director responsible for 20 trade magazines whose subject matter no one should be required to remember. I was talked into designing pharmaceutical packaging, but that only made me ill. When my nausea subsided, I started Terminal Design, Inc. and I haven’t been sick since. Since 1995 I have been working on the Clearview type system for text, display, roadway and interior guide signage. In 2004 the 13 font ClearviewHwy family was granted interim approval by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) for use on federal roadways. The approval was rescinded in March of 2016, but with the help of all 50 AASHTO representatives and the ongoing research that proves its superiority to Standard Highway Alphabets (Hightway Gothic) The interim approval was reinstated on March 28, 2018. My work has been featured in The New York Times, Print, Creative Review, ID, Wired, and is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. I’m a past president of the Type Directors Club (TDC), and have taught typography at Pratt Institute and type design at School of Visual Arts (SVA). I currently teach undergraduate type design at Parsons School of Design in New York City.