Richard W. Beatty, producer of the typefaces in The Beatty Collection, started his love for lead type at the age of 14 while folding the 750 weekly newspapers in his small home town on the arid plains of eastern Colorado. The publisher attempted to teach him the art of letterpress printing, but the poor coordination that kept him from drawing well also kept him from a career in printing.

The arrival of the Macintosh when he was 53 years old allowed him to finally experience the joy of producing a good line without erasing a hole in the paper. At last he could produce good architectural drawings, and for the first time could express his love for type by designing new faces and translating designs from lead type into digital format.

Twenty years later he has added 76 new type designs, 327 translations of old type and calligraphic designs, and 57 fonts of borders and ornaments to his collection. He has also provided logo and type designs for business and educational organizations and — perhaps his most read work — translations of lettering fonts for comic strips. He continues in both type and architectural design. Thanks to the font format conversions done by Jens Kutilek, all Beatty typefaces are now available in OpenType format.