On 31 May 2025, the Now25 conference will take place in Paris. Join us, to listen a mix of inspiring speakers evoking topics as broad as graphic design, web design, motion design, publishing, visual identity, communication and type design. If not already done, register now to take advantage of the best rates.
It seemed interesting to us to make you discover the profiles of our guests. Discover Charles Nix, Monotype.
Biography Charles Nix is a Senior Executive Creative Director at Monotype, lead designer for Helvetica Now and a number of popular typefaces in the Monotype Library, like Walbaum and Hope Sans, as well as custom fonts for M&M’s and contributed to the massive Google Noto project. Nix previously co-owned a publishing firm, where he designed hundreds of books and gained expertise in marketing, branding, and production. An accomplished educator and emeritus chair of the Type Directors Club, he has taught typography, graphic design and publication design for Adobe Fonts, Parsons, the TDC, Cooper Union (Type@Cooper), Typophiles, TypoCircle, RGD and through LinkedIn Learning.
Interview
What is your favorite way to start a day?
Charles Nix I like to start with a run. It clears my mind and helps me prioritize and think creatively. I run with an old friend — we’ve known each other for nearly 40 years and been running together for 25. We’re easy company. We run and talk, or we run in silence. When we part, I feel recharged — ready for new ideas or new takes on old ones. I don’t have a fixed routine, but I do have a mindset: resist the vortex of “work life”— think big, keep the long-term in focus, and put the day in context.
A typical day is divided into equal parts writing, talking, and thinking. I write the usual things—emails and Slack messages—but also strategy documents, presentations, articles, and interview responses. I talk to colleagues across Monotype — leadership, marketing, product, foundry, partnerships, sales, and creative teams. I talk to creative leaders at the world’s largest companies and the agencies that serve them. And I talk to other creative thinkers around the world. I also spend a lot of time thinking: about the hierarchy of tasks in front of me, the role of typography in business and culture, and the long arc of typographic history — and how each of us shapes it.
Do you prefer a permanent workspace, or do you keep mobile?
Charles Nix I have a dedicated workspace at home — a black box modeled on a recording studio. It’s ideal for meetings, podcast recording, and direct “keyboard writing.” But I also work from the road. I travel often to meet customers and speak at conferences, so I bring a mobile setup: an external monitor, tablets, sketchbook, and pens. When I’m writing something like this, though, I sit at the dining table with a yellow legal pad and a black Papermate Flair pen (I like the flow of the ink and the sound on the paper). I run, walk, drive, sometimes bike — and I sleep. Good ideas come from sleep, especially just before dawn, sometimes in the middle of the night. Others arrive in the shower. That’s true for a lot of people.
“I don’t have a fixed routine, but I do have a mindset: resist the vortex of “work life” — think big, keep the long-term in focus, and put the day in context.”
– Charles Nix
What kind of music do you listen to while working?
Charles Nix I’m a New Yorker (though I was born in Ohio) so I read the New York Times, and I dip into Apple News and other online sources. In my field, I read Brand New and Paul Worthington’s Off Kilter. I check in regularly with a long list of foundries and browse typecache.com to stay current.
What’s your relationship to social media?
Charles Nix I spend about 15 minutes a day on Instagram and another 15 on LinkedIn. I left Facebook and Twitter years ago — they made me feel meh. Social media is useful for staying connected to the community and keeping up with what people are thinking — but for me in limited doses.
What do you do to escape work?
Charles Nix I run. I play tennis. I cook for my family. And most of all, I love watching my kids — playing sports, performing, and otherwise doing their thing.
What drives you to create new typefaces?
Charles Nix Though I design less now than I used to, I’m still driven by a desire for the new — new forms, new purposes. That may sound ironic, considering my association with Helvetica Now, but even that was about an old form meeting a new time. Ambiguity reflects my interest in novel forms, while in my most recent (unreleased) work I’m exploring, testing, fighting, and collaborating with emerging type technologies.
What’s the best way to work—alone or in a team?
Charles Nix Most type designers are loners, and I do value solitude when developing new ideas. But collaboration makes work better. Teams provide scale, perspective, and critique. Early in my career, I was a solo act. In publishing, I worked in close partnerships with writers, editors, illustrators, photographers, and production teams. In education, I started with a single class of 15 students — essentially a small studio. Later, I taught multiple typography and design courses across levels, then worked as Associate Chair, hiring faculty and shaping curriculum. Eventually, as Department Chair, I collaborated with other chairs to guide the school’s broader vision.
That arc mirrors my journey through type: starting from a desire to make beautiful letters, expanding toward creative enterprises, networks, and institutions shaping the larger typographic story. Creative direction means generating, framing, and reframing ideas. It’s about critique, vision, and — true to its name — direction.
Have you ever felt too comfortable in your branding or type work?
Charles Nix When I started at Monotype as a Senior Type Designer, I felt obligated to please the customer with minimal friction. But even there, the problem was never exactly the same. Different brand, different time, different content. Now I feel more in my element—more engaged in a creative conversation with customers. Designers take a brief and immediately search for creative leverage: the reframing that leads to unexpected connections. Breakthroughs come from time and effort — not because we’re given more time, but because we take more time. We obsess. We fall asleep thinking about the problem. Sometimes the solution comes while running, biking, baking, or dreaming. The effort is the thinking — and sketching is part of that thought process. The inspiration comes when we allow the thoughts to pause long enough for something unexpected to enter.
“Breakthroughs come from time and effort — not because we’re given more time, but because we take more time. We obsess. We fall asleep thinking about the problem. (...) The inspiration comes when we allow the thoughts to pause long enough for something unexpected to enter.”
– Charles Nix
Do you redraw classics or invent new forms—and why?
Charles Nix I’ve redrawn classics. I’ve invented new forms. I love typography. I enjoy reviving useful forms of the past and creating new modes of expression. I’m driven by curiosity and the expressive impulse.
How do software tools and their rules shape type design today?
Charles Nix Today’s tools and tech — PostScript, Bézier outlines — absolutely shape our forms. We treat outlining forms as natural, but it’s not. Outlines and fills, strokes and curve points, corners and handles—they’re like drawing with wet spaghetti. We’ve had 30–40 years of relative uniformity thanks to these tools. No wonder we’re captivated and obsessed with odd and accidental typography in the built world — letterforms that live, not ones trapped by outlines. Variable fonts and extrapolated families extend that same logic: multiplying uniformity while dulling edge-quality and individuality. But I don’t see it as good or bad. It just is. These tools served their time and purpose. But nothing lasts forever. Letterforms existed millennia before PostScript — and they’ll evolve beyond it, too.
Will AI change how we design—and value—typefaces?
Charles Nix Absolutely. AI will upend how we design type. If you don’t see that coming, the next few years will be a rude awakening. If you’re designing the next “almost Helvetica” or “sort-of Gotham,” you’ve missed the boat. It’s high time to challenge yourself and others. Low margin, race-to-the-bottom pricing and ethically-gray, intellectually-blunted type design has hit a dead end. If you’re creatively and original it’ll still going to affect you, but differently. The paradigm will shift: slowly, then all at once. Creative people — as creative people do — will adapt and usher in the next thing, and the thing after that.
What do you think of the free/open-source font trend?
Charles Nix I don’t think about them much. Some are excellent; many are forgettable. They serve a purpose — though not usually mine. (Hotel walls need art, too.) They are free though, so at the moment they’re having an outsized impact as AI training data. That will change.
How’s the font market doing in 2025; where is it heading?
Charles Nix The font market is strong. There’s room for big players and small independents alike. Take the long view. Typography evolved from handmade forms to cast metal, to machine-set type, to film, to digital. Each phase changed how we made and distributed type. Today we live in a hybrid era: retail licensing, subscription platforms, font bundling, and direct sales all coexist — for now. None is the “right” way and all are bound to evolve. It’s that evolution that we all need to be aware of and to help shape.
Is Monotype perceived differently across the creative industry?
Charles Nix Of course. Perception depends on where you sit — enterprise client, freelance designer, competing foundry. Monotype’s size, library scale, and growth over the past 20 years create both admiration and critique. That’s expected for a dominant player.
How do you imagine the future of typography and branding?
Charles Nix I see typography evolving within branding — and the wider culture. AI is the biggest driver of that evolution currently — in font discovery, creation, and use. Beyond AI (or with AI), typography will continue to adapt to a world where motion, sound, and interaction are standard components of communication and branding.
How do you approach collaboration in teaching?
Charles Nix I don’t teach regularly anymore — except an annual course at SVA as part of an amazing faculty lineup. When I do teach, critique is central. It trains students to observe closely, articulate clearly, and engage constructively. That’s the foundation for creative collaboration: choosing partners, navigating ideas, and scaling effort.
What lessons from publishing or advertising still serve your type design work?
Charles Nix At least half a dozen. Publishing taught me process, discipline, and hierarchy. I learned how to write and edit with intention — and how to read type as carefully as I read text. I learned what works in which context, how tone shapes content, and how to adjust form to fit need and intention. Teaching helped me think more deeply about why we design, and how to explain ideas to myself and others.
When did you decide to pursue your career and who were your mentors?
Charles Nix My father was a printer, so ink was already in my blood. I was doing novice design and lettering work as a preteen, and by my teens I was painting signs and designing graphics. But when I left Ohio for New York and enrolled at Cooper Union, I intended to study painting and drawing. Three mentors at Cooper changed the course of my life and steered me back toward letters. First was William Bevington, my typography instructor. He taught me to use type with intention and inspired me to start drawing it. Second was Don Kunz, who taught calligraphy. From him I learned the discipline of mark-making and the logic of letter constructions — and the imperative of teaching. He let me serve as a TA while I was still a student. Third was George Sadek, a great designer, typographer, and teacher. He taught me how to listen to text — how to hear meaning, reframe problems, and use creative leverage. He taught me how to execute with extreme discipline and when to inject chaos to captivate the reader.
Do you sketch or draw before moving to digital?
Charles Nix I write, I draw, I think. I still prefer paper — especially for writing. I’m of a generation that loves the sound of pen on paper and the freedom of thought it allows. I’m not dogmatic about analog vs. digital, but I’ve learned that when a problem stalls onscreen, a drawing (or handwriting) can usually shake it loose.
Any words of wisdom for someone entering the creative field?
Charles Nix I’m not sure if this qualifies as wisdom, but I believe everyone has a creative side. It might not be visual or traditionally “artistic,” but creativity is innate — and it can be cultivated. In that spirit, I think everyone should learn the fundamentals of graphic design. Communication is central to modern life, and design fluency is a critical life skill. Design is a verb. It’s not just about how something looks — it’s about how you think, how you frame problems, how you imagine and test solutions. In the next four years, AI will transform production. But creativity — the ability to think critically, to explore, to reimagine — will remain the most valuable trait in design.
So: invest in your creativity. Strengthen your critical thinking. Stoke your curiosity. Embrace the new — and make something of it.
What message do you want to convey during your Now25 talk?
Charles Nix Typography responds to, participates in, and shapes culture. It’s both a cultural force and a cultural catalyst. See that power. Grab it. Think big.
Which other speaker(s) would you not want to miss at Now25?
Charles Nix That’s tough — I don’t want to miss any of them. I’m excited to see Veronika Burian. I admire her work. Just van Rossum is a design demigod to me. Rainer Erich Scheichelbauer makes me genuinely happy. And I appreciate Lucas Sharp — not just for his designs, but for his expansive thinking.
Thank you very much Charles!
– Interview by Laimė Lukošiūnaitė
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