Lightizer joined the company’s type division straight out of high school at age 18. At the time, the business was known as Compugraphic Corp.
After 53 years at Monotype, Lightizer retired last month at 70, according to an online report by The Boston Globe. Lightizer joined the company’s type division straight out of high school at age 18, according to the report. For most people, retirement comes with a card, a cake or perhaps a watch to mark the occasion. For Pat Lightizer, it came with something far more fitting: a typeface with her name on it. She ended a career that began when fonts were created by hand and concluded in an era when thousands of typefaces can be accessed digitally in seconds. To celebrate her remarkable tenure, her colleagues created the Lightizer font as a surprise retirement gift, states the report. Scroll down to read about her journey and the kind gesture. At the time, the business was known as Compugraphic Corp. and was based in Wilmington, Massachusetts. In those days, the world of typography looked very different and designers drew individual letters by hand on drawing boards. Lightizer’s job involved testing the finished work to see how fonts appeared once they had been set. Images Courtesy: The Boston Globe and Google Gemini