Sumner Stone studied both mathematics and calligraphy in college, with a clear plan in mind: mathematics would be his career; calligraphy, his avocation. Somehow, the plan got switched.
It’s not that he didn’t try. After college, Stone taught mathematics for a while. Soon, though, his love of letters and exceptional calligraphic skills landed him a job as a lettering artist for Hallmark Cards. After working for Hallmark, Stone moved to Sonoma, California to open his own design studio, The Alpha and Omega Press, which he ran for nine years.
Stone’s mathematical ambitions were not forgotten, however. In fact, it was during this period that Stone earned his M.A. in mathematics at California State University – work that also served to introduce Stone to computer technology.
In 1984, Stone became Director of Typography at Adobe Systems in California. There he designed original typefaces and began to fulfill his dream of creating a typeface library. Stone hired a staff of designers and, over the next six years, he and his team built the foundation of the Adobe library, as well as a large part of the type resources currently offered by Adobe.
In January of 1990, Stone left Adobe to follow another dream: he now owns and runs his own type design studio, The Stone Type Foundry, in Guinda, California. He creates new designs that he sells directly from his foundry, licenses some of his work to companies like ITC and Monotype Imaging for distribution, and does custom designs for companies and publications that want their own special typefaces.
Stone is the designer of the ITC Stone, Stone Print, Silica, Arepo and Cycles typeface families. He was the art director and one of the designers of the prize-winning ITC Bodoni. Scripps College commissioned his revival of Scripps College Old Style, originally designed by Frederic Goudy. He is also the author of On Stone: The Art and Use of Typography on the Personal Computer.