Timeline
March 1, 1993
Andy Cruz and Rich Roat quit their jobs and set up Brand Design Co., Inc. in the spare room of Rich's apartment.
Fall 1993
Allen Mercer joins Brand Design Co., Inc. as a partner as he entered his senior year at Temple’s Tyler School of Art.
Spring 1994
We scam some free paper for Custom Papers Group, Rich trades some Quark Xpress training with the local quick printer, Andy cooks up the name "House Industries" and we start a font company.
Spring 1994
Somebody calls from Warner Brothers Records to order fonts. Unfortunately, we had only drawn enough letters to spell out the names of the fonts, so we had to invoke the “allow four to six weeks for delivery” clause.
Summer 1994
We pick up Custom Papers Group as a client
November 1994
“Leatherette” font catalog mails. Phone rings off the hook. We hire our first real employee, Luong Nguyen.
March 1995
Custom Papers Group mails our first “Custom Cars” mailer
May 1995
Jeremy Dean graduates from Tyler, joins House Industries. His desk is in the kitchen in front of the stove.
June 1995
We release our first “themed” font collection, The Bad Neighborhood.
September 1995
Custom Papers Group Shop Manual printed, sets the tone for the forthcoming Street Van collection
October 1995
Scrawl Collection Released
December 1995
House Industries moves to 427 Tatnall Street in Wilmington.
December 1995
Jeremy witnesses a crunk eating an old sandwich, then vomiting it into the void space in a block wall. Ken catches an amorous couple on the hood of his Honda in the Tatnall Street parking lot.
December 1995
House Industries regrets moving to 427 Tatnall Street in Wilmington.
January 1996
Ken Barber joins the crew.
February 1996
Adam Cruz does his first painting for House Industries during his freshman year at University of Delaware
June 1996
Adam Cruz joins the crew
May 1996
Street Van Collection Released
June 1996
Rat Fink Fonts Released
July 1996
Monster Fonts Released
January 1997
Tiki Type Released
January 1997
Ed “Big Daddy” Roth stops at House Industries to take a break between car shows and join us for a little open house in our unfinished Tatnall Street studio.
May 1997
House Gothic Released
September 1997
“We don’t really dig the web as a medium, so you may have noticed that our site has no high-tech font downloading system. All you can do is buy this catalog (and you already have one if you’re reading this), so just pick up the phone like the rest of us cave dwellers and call 800-888-4390 to order.”
December 1997
Chris Cooper visits our Tatnall Street studio for the Typography of Coop release party.
January 1998
Typography of Coop Released
June 1998
Nothing happened
March 1999
Sign Painter fonts released.
September 1999
The first issue of House Magazine hits the streets. We discover the difficult world of publishing periodicals.
June 1999
House-a-rama fonts released. Font downloads allowed after web purchase. We dig the web as a medium. Speaking of web, we discover how cheap web printing is.
May 1999
Andy, Ken and Rich give quite possibly the most boring lecture in design conference history. Afterwards, the trio cooks up the idea to play live music with a low-tech House multi-media show as a backdrop.
September 1999
The House Industries band makes its debut at the AIGA Biennial Conference in Las Vegas. Chee Perlman turns off Rich’s microphone but we greased the sound guy’s palm before the show, so he turned us up louder.
January 2000
Chalet font collection released.
July 2000
The second issue of House Magazine hits the streets. We re-discover the difficult world of publishing periodicals.
December 2000
House Industries moves to its present location in Yorklyn, Delaware
January 2001
Tal Leming Joins House Industries
July 2001
The third issue of House Magazine hits the streets. We tire of the difficult world of publishing periodicals.
May 2002
Bondé Prang gets a co-op gig at House Industries while still in high school. Andy Cruz did the same in 1989 at Wilmington’s Miller Mauro Group, where he ran into Rich Roat.
November 2002
We discover how boring, unforgiving and repetitive web printing is. Much more money is spent on sheet-fed printing with the Neutraface catalog.
November 2002
We release the first version of Neutraface.
September 2003
Amidst an unprecedented viral fanfare, we release the Shag collection.
September 2003
Tropical Storm Hugo blows in, dumps several inches of rain in two hours and floods our storage area. We spend the next week covering the studio floor with vellum, tracing paper and original drawings so they could dry out. Most of the new Shag catalogs were lost.
March 2004
House Industries 10-year book published. In year 11.
July 2004
Neutraface Condensed joins its wider sibling.
October 2004
The Ed Benguiat collection is released with some of the most innovative application of OpenType features in Latin-language-based fonts.
April 2005
John Downer’s Paperback is released.
February 2006
Katie Wilson survives a heinous internship to earn a spot on the crew.
March 2006
Ben Kiel surrenders his MA in typeface design from the University of Reading to join the staff.
May 2006
Tal Leming finishes the 105 different variations of the United collection.
February 2007
Tal Leming’s Burbank collection is released.
November 2007
Neutraface No. 2 is released.
June 2008
After several years of curve drawing, code breaking and heart aching, we release Ken Barber’s Studio Lettering collection.
November 2008
Our Letters & Ligatures exhibition makes the scene at Shepard Fairey’s Subliminal Projects gallery.
December 2008-present
Too busy working to update the timeline.