Monday 8 November 2010

6 DEGREES OF SEPERATION: MATTHEW CARTER

Regarded as one of the greatest typographers of our time, Matthew Carter, born in England and now residing in America, is one of very few typographers who has witnessed the transition from physical metal type to digital. This fact doesn’t help to disguise his age, but at the ripe old age of 73, he shows no signs of slowing down. Over the years he has created many widely used typefaces, ones in which millions of people use and see everyday. He is mostly responsible for aiding the transportation of typography to the screen, creating Verdana for Microsoft, a typeface the world reads from the web, quoted by the design museum as being ‘the elegant gatekeeper of a huge proportion of information.’, along with Georgia, a serif typeface also adopted by Microsoft, for the use of it’s ‘core fonts for the web’ collection.

Just four of Carter's most widely used and recognised typefaces

He also created the typeface Bell Centennial, a sans serif typeface commissioned in 1974 by American telecommunications company AT&T, to be used in telephone directory books, which is still used to this day. Carter has designed typefaces for many publications such as newspaper The New York Times, Wired, Time and more, however it is his continuous work with Microsoft and Apple that has gained him most recognition, and because of this he has received countless awards for his contribution to typography and design. It is Carters involvement with Apple that leads me onto my final link. In 1989, Matthew was interviewed by a magazine, about his views on the initial response by the world of graphic design to the introduction of the Macintosh computers, this interview was held for issue eleven of Emigre Magazine……

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