Matthew Carter

1961 Carter was able to use the skills he acquired to cut his own version of the semi-bold typeface Dante.

atthew Carter (Born in London on 1 October 1937) is a type designer and the son of the English typographer Harry Carter (19011982). He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts . He designed the early 1.0 web fonts Verdana and Georgia. In 2010, he was named a MacAurther Fellow.

Although Carter had intended to get a degree in English at Oxford University he was advised to take a year off so he would be the same age as his contemporaries who had gone into National Service. It was through his father, Harry Carter, also a type designer, that Matthew Carter was given an internship at the Jon. Enschede type foundry in the Netherlands. At the age of 19, Carter spent a year studying in The Netherlands where he learned from Jan van Krimpens assistant P. H. Raedisch, who taught Carter the art of punch cutting. By 1961 Carter was able to use the skills he acquired to cut his own version of the semi-bold typeface Dante. Carters career in type design has witnessed the transition from physical metal type to digital type. Carter eventually returned to London where he became a freelancer as well as the typographic advisor to Crossfield Electronics

Bell Centennial
distributors of Photon phototypesetting machines. Carter designed many Linotype as well. Under Linotype, Carter created well known typefaces including the 100-year replacement typeface for Bell Telephone Company, Bell Centennial.

An early example of his work is the logo he designed for the fortnightly British satirical magazine Private Eye in May 1962, still used today.

Prewwviously the lettering had been different for the masthead of each issue. The logo has also appeared books, memorabilia and merchandise. In 1981, Carter and his colleague Mike Parker created Bitstream Inc. This digital type foundry is currently one of the largest suppliers of type. He left Bitstream in 1991 to form the Carter & Cone type foundry with Cherie Cone. Carter focuses on improving many typefaces readability. He designs specifically for Apple and Microsoft Computers. Georgia and Verdana are two fonts created primarily for viewing on computer monitors. Carter has designed type

for publications such as Time, The Washington Post, The New York Times, the Boston Globe, Wired, and Newsweek He is a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI), is a senior critic for Yales Graphic design program, has served as chairman of ATypl, is a member of the Board of Directors of the Type Directors Club, and is an ex officio member of the board of directors of the Society Of Typographic Aficionados (SOTA). Carter has won numerous awards for his significant contributions to typography and design, including an honors causa, Doctorate of Humane Letters, from the Art Institute of Boston , an AIGA medal in 1995, the TDC Medal from the Type Directors Club in 1997, and the 2005 SOTATypography Award. A retrospective of his work, Typographically Speaking, The Art of Matthew Carter, was exhibited at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in December 2002.

Matthew Carter| Typography Styling on the Behance Network

alker is intended for headline purposes and thus exists as an all caps alphabet.

In 2010, Carter was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow, otherwise known as a genius grant. In 2007, Carter designed a new variant of the typeface Georgia for use in the graphical user interface of the Bloomberg Terminal. Seven of Carters typefaces are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. MoMA acquired these in 2011. The typefaces were displayed in the MoMAs Standard Devations exhibition of 2011-12. The seven typefaces are Bell Centennial, Big Caslon, ITC Galliard, Mantinia, Miller, Verdana and Walker.

Big Caslon family was expanded in 2003 with italic capitals commissioned by Wallpaper magazine. The newer italic letters have swash characters with exaggerated flourishes. Some italic characters have really elegant tails, terminals and ears, but also some regular cuts have alternatives, like the upper case Q below. The ampersand of this typeface is curly, decorative yet sophisticated. There are special ligatures of characters ct and st, where the letters are joined with a simple and elegant circle.