Matthew Carter
Matthew Carter MacArthur Fellow |
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Matthew Carter
Carter's career began in the early 1960s and has bridged all three major technologies used in type design:
Carter's most used typefaces are the classic web typefaces
Early life and education
Carter grew up in London, the son of Harry Carter, a book designer and later historian of printing. His mother worked in preparing scale drawings.
Although Carter had intended to get a degree in English at Oxford he was advised to take a year off so he would be the same age as his contemporaries who had gone into National Service.
Career
Enschedé
Through his father, Carter arranged to hold an internship at the
Carter enjoyed the experience, and decided to move directly into a career in graphic design and printing.
London and New York
Carter's career in type and graphic design has bridged the transition from physical metal type to digital type.
Despite Carter's training in the art of traditional punchcutting, his career developed at a time when
The Monotype classic [fonts] dominated the typographical landscape ... in Britain, at any rate, they were so ubiquitous that, while their excellent quality was undeniable, it was possible to be bored by them and to begin to rebel against the bland good taste that they represented. In fact we were already aware by 1960 that they might not be around to bore us for too long. The death of metal type ... seemed at last to be happening.'[9]
Carter eventually returned to London where he became a freelancer. By 1961 Carter was able to use the skills he acquired to cut his own version of the semi-bold typeface Dante. An early example of his work is the masthead logo he designed for the British magazine Private Eye in May 1962, still in use.[10][11] Previously the lettering had been different for the masthead of each issue; it was based on a typeface ('a bit of nameless juvenilia') which was never ultimately published.[12][13] He also did early work for Heathrow Airport.[14][15]
Carter would later become the typographic advisor to
's phone directories and to celebrate its anniversary.Based on the work of
Carter also advised IBM as an independent consultant in the 1980s.[19]
Bitstream
In 1981, Carter and his colleague
Carter and Cone
Carter left Bitstream in 1991 and in 1992 formed the Carter & Cone type foundry with Cherie Cone.[24] Carter's recent typefaces have been published by a range of retailers including ITC, Font Bureau and Monotype, often in collaboration with Carter and Cone, together with his custom designs created for companies such as Microsoft.
Of Carter's recent typefaces, the serif web typeface Georgia is inspired by Scotch Roman designs of the 19th century.[25][26] It was based on designs for a print typeface in the same style Carter was working on when contacted by Microsoft; this would be released under the name Miller some years later.[27][28][29] Speaking in 2013 about the development of Georgia and Miller, Carter said, "I was familiar with Scotch romans, puzzled by the fact that they were once so popular ... and then they disappeared completely."[30]
Many of Carter's typefaces were created to address specific technical challenges, for example those posed by early computers.
Carter's only typeface to bear his name is Carter Sans.[33][34][35] It is a 'glyphic' sans-serif with flaring towards the end of each letter. It was inspired by Albertus, a popular British typeface created by Berthold Wolpe for Monotype. Carter knew Wolpe early in his career and helped digitize one of his less-known typefaces for a 1980 retrospective of his work.[36]
One of Carter's more unusual projects was a typeface, Van Lanen, for the Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum. A 'Latin'-style wedge serif typeface, it was released both in digital form and wood type. In an article on it, Carter noted that it has been "50 years since a type of my design had been in a physical form that I could hold in my hand."[37]
Carter has taught on Yale University's graphic design programme since 1976.[38] He also designed the university's corporate typeface, Yale, at the request of John Gambell, the University Printer.[39][40][41] Carter has said that this was the first time in designing a typeface that he focused more on capital than lowercase letters, since he knew that on the building signs the lettering would be in capitals.[42] Carter wrote that:
The signs, whether free-standing or attached to walls, reminded me of inscriptions, and this led me to think about the inscriptional origins of Roman caps and the everlasting problem of reconciling capitals with lowercase. For me, the moment when the first true synthesis occurred was in the type of De Aetna. This led me in turn to the
Beinecke Library to pore over their copy of the book and its type – the archetype of Roman type for me.[42]
Awards
Carter has won numerous awards for his contributions to typography and design, including an
On 26 May 2011, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Design Awards at the White House.[44][45]
He is a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI), has served as chairman of ATypI, 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). Some of Carter's designs are in the collection of the St. Bride Printing Library in London.[46]
Carter was appointed
Typefaces
Matthew Carter's typefaces include the following:
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Besides Carter's commercially released typefaces, many of his designs have been privately commissioned for companies for their own use. These include work for
Seven of Carter's typefaces—Bell Centennial, Big Caslon, ITC Galliard, Mantinia, Miller, Verdana and Walker—have been in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art since 2011. The typefaces were displayed in the MoMA's Standard Deviations exhibition of 2011–12.
See also
References
- ^ a b c d A Man of Letters Archived 9 July 2007 at the Wayback Machine, U.S. News & World Report, 1 September 2003.
- ISBN 9780982792667.
- ^ Wilkinson, Alex (27 November 2005). "Man of Letters". New Yorker. Retrieved 15 February 2016.
- ^ "The most-read man in the world". The Economist. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- ^ "Matthew Carter – Designing Britain". Design Museum. Archived from the original on 27 February 2016. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- ^ Rawsthorn, Alice (9 July 2006). "Quirky serifs aside, Georgia fonts win on Web". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 September 2015.
- ^ Berry, John. "dot-font: The Typographic Art of Matthew Carter". CreativePro. Archived from the original on 11 February 2006. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- ^ Newsham, Jack. "Five things you should know about Matthew Carter". Boston Globe. Retrieved 22 April 2016.
- ISBN 9781568984278. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
- ^ Walters, John. "Matthew Carter's timeless typographic masthead for Private Eye magazine". Eye. Retrieved 24 August 2015.
- ^ MacQueen, Adam (2011). Private Eye The First 50 Years An A-Z. Private Eye Productions Limited. p. 180.
- ^ Carter, Matthew. "Carter's Battered Stat". Eye. Retrieved 5 February 2016.
- ^ "Old School layout". Eye Magazine. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- ^ Webster, Garrick (19 January 2011). "Matthew Carter Interview". Creative Bloq. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- ^ Soar, Matt. "Excoffon's Autograph". Eye Magazine. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- ^ Shaw, Paul (12 May 2011). "Flawed Typefaces". Print magazine. Retrieved 30 June 2015.
- ISBN 978-1-56898-427-8.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link - ^ Mosley, James. "Garamond or Garamont". Type Foundry blog. Retrieved 3 December 2015.
- ^ Shaw, Paul. "Some history about Arial". Paul Shaw Letter Design. Retrieved 22 May 2015.
- ^ Devroye, Luc. "Bitstream". Type Design Information Page. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- ^ "Alastair Johnston interviews John Downer" (PDF). Alastair Johnston. Retrieved 21 February 2016.
- NASDAQ. 19 March 2012. Retrieved 26 March 2012.
- ^ "Monotype Imaging Completes Acquisition of Bitstream's Font Business". press release. Monotype Imaging. 19 March 2012. Archived from the original on 8 April 2012. Retrieved 26 March 2012.
- ^ Carter, Matthew; Spiekermann, Erik. "Reputations: Matthew Carter". Eye Magazine. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- ^ Mosley, James. "Scotch Roman". Type Foundry. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- ^ Lew, Kent (29 October 2009). "New Faces in Washington". Font Bureau. Archived from the original on 11 July 2011. Retrieved 22 January 2011.
- ^ Connare, Vincent. "Comments on Typophile thread ..." Typophile. Archived from the original on 13 December 2017. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- ^ "Miller". Font Bureau. Retrieved 12 May 2015.
- ^ "Matthew Carter's Type Revivals Talk at the TDC" (PDF). APHA Newsletter (173). American Printing History Association. 2010. Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 July 2011. Retrieved 22 January 2011.
- ^ a b c Middendorp, Jan. "Matthew Carter interview". MyFonts. Monotype. Retrieved 11 July 2015.
- ^ "Charter Pro". MyFonts. Monotype. Archived from the original on 6 October 2014. Retrieved 28 September 2014.
- ^ "Big Caslon promotional page". Font Bureau. Retrieved 27 July 2015.
- ^ Ford, Colin M. "Carter Sans". Typographica. Retrieved 6 November 2016.
- ^ Reynolds, Dan (18 January 2011). "Carter Sans". Typeoff. Retrieved 6 November 2016.
- ^ Shaw, Paul (2 March 2011). "An Interview With Matthew Carter". Print magazine. Retrieved 6 November 2016.
- ^ Shaw, Paul (10 February 2011). "Overlooked Typefaces". Print magazine. Retrieved 2 July 2015.
- ^ a b Carter, Matthew. "Yin and Yang". Eye Magazine. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- ^ "Matthew Carter, Type Designer". Yale School of Art. Retrieved 25 January 2013.
- ^ Jackson, Brandon (13 April 2012). "The Yale Type". The New Journal. Yale University. Retrieved 30 June 2015.
- ^ "A brief history of the Yale typeface". Yale Printer. Retrieved 16 August 2015.
- ^ Needham, Paul (15 April 2008). "What's in a (Yale) Typeface?". Yale Daily News. Retrieved 25 January 2013.
- ^ a b Shaw, Paul (2 March 2011). "An Interview With Matthew Carter". Print. Archived from the original on 9 March 2012. Retrieved 25 January 2013.
- ^ Gillian Rich (7 October 2010). "Cambridge font man wins MacArthur grant". Wicked Local Cambridge. Perinton, New York: GateHouse Media. Archived from the original on 15 April 2012.
- ^ Matthew Carter Receives 2011 National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement
- ^ Lasky, Julie (25 May 2011). "Honoring a Designer Who Gave Computers Their Fonts (Published 2011)". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 7 April 2023.
- ^ Mosley, James. "The materials of typefounding". Type Foundry. Retrieved 14 August 2015.
- ^ "No. 63135". The London Gazette (Supplement). 10 October 2020. p. B9.
- ^ "Queen's Birthday Honours". gov.uk. Retrieved 10 October 2020.
- ^ "Alisal". MyFonts. Monotype. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- ^ "Bell Centennial". MyFonts. Adobe/Linotype. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- ^ "MoMA – The Collection – Matthew Carter. Big Caslon. 1993". The Museum of Modern Art.
- ^ "Big Caslon – Desktop font " MyFonts". New.myfonts.com. 1 January 2000. Archived from the original on 7 March 2009. Retrieved 22 October 2012.
- ^ "Big Caslon FB". Font Bureau. Retrieved 23 June 2015.
- ^ "Big Caslon". Fonts in Use. Retrieved 30 August 2015.
- ^ "Cascade LT". MyFonts. Linotype. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- ^ Butterick, Matthew (2013). "Charter". Butterick's Practical Typography. Retrieved 1 August 2013.
- ^ "Cochin". MyFonts. Linotype/Adobe. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- ^ a b Fineman, Mia (25 May 2007). "The Helvetica Hegemony: How an unassuming font took over the world". Slate.
- ISBN 9781568984278.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link - ^ "MoMA – The Collection – Matthew Carter. Mantinia. 1993". The Museum of Modern Art.
- ^ "Mantinia FB". Font Bureau. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- ^ "MoMA – The Collection – Matthew Carter. Miller. 1997". The Museum of Modern Art.
- ^ Berry, John D. "Mr. Jefferson's Typeface". Creative Pro. Retrieved 22 April 2016.
- ^ "Olympian". MyFonts. Linotype. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- ^ "Rocky FB". Font Bureau. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- ^ "Shelley Script". MyFonts. Adobe/Linotype. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- ^ "Sophia FB". Font Bureau. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- ^ a b "Stilson FB". Font Bureau. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- ^ "HWT Van Lanen". MyFonts. Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- ^ "MoMA – The Collection – Matthew Carter. Verdana. 1996". The Museum of Modern Art.
- ^ "MoMA – The Collection – Matthew Carter. Walker. 1995". The Museum of Modern Art.
- ^ Devroye, Luc. "Matthew Carter". Type Design Information Page. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- ^ "Roster: A Square-Shouldered Powerhouse in 60 Styles". Font Bureau. Archived from the original on 15 February 2016. Retrieved 22 February 2016.
- No. 11, Vol. 3, edited by Rick Poynor, Wordsearch Ltd, 1993.
- Macmillan, Neil (2006). An A-Z of Type Designers. Laurence King Publishing. ISBN 1856693953., p. 62.
External links
- MyFonts
- Georgia & Verdana – Typefaces for the screen
- Type Designer Showcase biography at Monotype Imaging
- Designing Modern Britain exhibition biography
- Matthew Carter at TED
- Mathew Carter in conversation with Erik Spiekermann, Eye No. 11
- Graphic Content: Carter Sans, by Steven Heller, New York Times, 2 February 2011
- Matthew Carter – collection of material by Luc Devroye
- Carter & Cone (Luc Devroye's website)
- Carter & Cone