Helvetica and Times New Roman are legendary, instantly recognizable typefaces, and they're both owned by the biggest type conglomerate in the world. Now, that company is adding emoji and stickers to its holdings.

Monotype—which owns some of the most ubiquitous typefaces of both our digital and physical worlds—announced yesterday that it had acquired a small company called Swyft Media, which makes stickers and emoji—for $12 million. On the surface it might look like a relatively ho-hum business deal deal, but in reality, it also illustrates how we'll text and message in the future.

Swyft is based on a very unique business mode. It creates emoji and stickers that are given (or sold) to users on a huge number of emerging messaging apps, from Kik to Tango to Facebook Messenger. A good example cited by Forbes: A sticker pack created to promote Gwen Stefani's new album. Swyft created the pack and put it on Tango for free—and it was downloaded more than a million times. Swyft also works with brands and companies to sell stickers to users who are willing to pay for them, like fans of a particular sports team.

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