Monotype Imaging Inc., a global leader in type and technology, has collaborated with Audiosocket, a pioneer in music licensing and sound innovation, with an AI-mediated exploration of the intersections of sound and typography and the future of "polysensory" brand experiences. This collaboration is the first in a series of planned activations by Monotype, exploring themes from their 2025 Type Trends Report Re:Vision with a variety of creative partners throughout the year. Following the theme Sound and Vision, this collaboration invites creatives to blend the worlds of type and music using Fonic, an innovative new creative platform.

Music has long been recognized as "the shorthand of emotion," but typography also has the power to evoke feelings. Monotype's extensive international research with applied neuroscience company Neurons revealed that different font styles illicit different associations around feelings of trust, quality, and innovation. Now, Fonic allows users to explore the hidden emotive connections between fonts and music, as Fonic's AI-enabled tools generate inspiring pairings from Monotype's library and Audiosocket's artist catalog.

The AI pairing technology was built by Audiosocket in collaboration with Monotype and is powered by AIMS search API. As users play with these connections in Fonic over the course of the year, the results will allow Audiosocket and Monotype to uncover more new insights on the connections between type and sound. The curated selection of Monotype fonts combines iconic designs with unexpected hidden gems, including Gotham®, Albertus® Nova, Macklin™, and Cotford™.

Synesthesia, a superpower in which one sense triggers another, is common among creatives. Using instinct and experience, designers and creatives pair visual and auditory elements to evoke emotion and convey meaning. Yet, until now, there have been no tools to systematically connect sound and typography for "polysensory" brand experiences. Fonic addresses this gap, using metadata and AI to help creatives quickly discover both fonts through sound and sound through fonts. This interplay of music and typography creates memorability and is a cornerstone of emotive branding.

Fonic leverages Audiosocket's vast music catalog with AIMS' AI-enabled tagging and a curated selection from Monotype's library to find hidden connections in the metadata and inform and enrich recommendations. This descriptive metadata, validated by human experts, feeds an AI model that then identifies connections between sound and typography based on user prompts. The result is an intuitive app that provides paired audio-typographic recommendations to help creatives create polysensory brand experiences. As users experiment and explore the app, contributing prompts and feedback throughout the year, Fonic will continue to learn and grow.

Jenn Anderson-Miller, CEO at Audiosocket said; "Working in the music sync industry, we think about the interplay between sight and sound every day. Sound and typography are two sides of the same creative coin — just as a font can convey an emotion, so can a melody or a soundscape. By combining our expertise with Monotype's, we developed Fonic to deepen our understanding of these connections and uncover the human insights that shape creative decisions. With the findings from this experimentation, we aim to bring these innate connections to light and harness them to drive meaningful impact."

Charles Nix, Senior Executive Creative Director at Monotype said; "Brand, at its best, is a seamless coming together of type, color, vision, and sound, to create polysensory and emotive experiences. Brands operate in a multimedia world that's increasingly mediated by AI, and creatives need intelligent new tools to make informed and inspired design choices. We're excited to showcase Fonic as a new creative exploration of how such tools can work and how they can help creatives find new meanings in the interplay of sound and vision."

The Sound & Vision project is part of Monotype's broader strategy to explore the future of brand identity in a multimedia-driven world, with Fonic offering a glimpse into the future of AI-enabled creative expression.