Akira Kobayashi is a Japanese font designer living in Germany. As type director for Monotype, he oversees typeface design and reprints of classic typefaces such as Optima. He has also served as a judge in several international typeface contests. He previously worked at 写研 (Shaken), and later designed the European characters for Hiragino Mincho and AXIS Font. He is a leading person in designing Western typefaces in Japan, and has co-developed fonts with Hermann Zapf and Adrian Frutiger. Kobayashi grew up in Japan and has written a Japanese-language book about Western fonts, titled "西文字体".