Prepress
Monotype Imaging Contributes Simplified Chinese Font “MYuppy” to Symbian
Tuesday 08. June 2010 - First Production-Quality Font in the Symbian Platform Targeted for Rapid Symbian Adoption in China
The Symbian Foundation, the organization which manages the worlds leading smartphone platform, and Monotype Imaging Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: TYPE), a leading global provider of text imaging solutions and member of the foundation, today announced the first production-quality, open source font available for the Symbian platform. The Monotype Yuppy, or MYuppy Chinese font, is expected to benefit the worldwide Symbian community, particularly device manufacturers and application developers targeting China, the largest mobile market in the world. MYuppy can now be downloaded from developer.symbian.org. Anyone can use and customize the font for free.
A newly designed typeface, MYuppy is engineered for high-quality display on mobile devices and is targeted to OEMs and application developers seeking to enter or expand quickly into Chinese markets. The font supports the Simplified Chinese writing system and includes a set of matching Latin characters. The design also offers a unique, modern feel and is characterized by clean lines intended to promote high legibility and easy reading on mobile devices.
“Open-sourcing a production-quality Chinese font is a significant step for Symbian and the success of its community in China. Symbian currently holds a dominant position in Chinas smartphone market, with our market share standing at 70 percent in Q1 2010, as reported by In-Stat China, but we are always looking to improve the offering for the 780 million users in Chinas mobile market,” said Lee M. Williams, executive director of Symbian. “By contributing an eye-catching font that can be used by all for free and customized easily, Monotype Imaging is going the extra mile to support Symbian and our community in achieving our goals in China.”
Steve Martin, vice president of engineering at Monotype Imaging, said, “China represents a large opportunity for the Symbian platform. As a member of the Symbian Foundation, Monotype Imaging agreed that providing an open source font would help pave the way for more Symbian devices to be created for Chinese markets. We believe MYuppy helps to position Symbian to succeed now that the platform addresses one of the most critical requirements ? high-quality Chinese text thats both easy to read and visually appealing.”
MYuppy may also be customized by OEMs to bring distinctive base fonts to a device portfolio, and application developers can use the font in their applications. As an open source font, MYuppy can also be modified and extended into different fonts and then contributed back to the Symbian platform, under the terms of the Eclipse Public License, an open source software license. This enables a wide variety of Chinese fonts to be created for future use by device manufacturers, application developers and the wider community beyond the mobile industry. In addition, MYuppy can be used for free in a variety of works including poster graphics, artwork and software programs.