How do you design a great typeface
Last fall the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation named Matthew Carter a foundation fellow. The so-called genius grant simply confirmed what those of us in the small design world already knew: that Carter is one of the most important type designers of the past half century. He was born into the world of type design in 1937 as the son of Harry Carter, the type historian. And through his father he entered the business of type design rather than going to university. At the age of 17 Carter studied punchcutting with P.H. Rädisch at Joh. Enschedé en Zonen in Haarlem, the Netherlands. One year later he returned to London and set up shop as a lettering artist and typographic advisor to Crosfield Electronics, English distributors of the Photon phototypesetting machine. In 1965 Carter joined Mergenthaler Linotype in Brooklyn, where he worked closely with Mike Parker on adapting the Linotype library to the then-new world of phototype. The two men, plus Cherie Cone and Rob Friedman, left Linotype in 1981 to establish Bitstream, one of the first digital type foundries. Ten years later Carter and Cone went out on their own as Carter & Cone Type, and ever since Carter has worked as a freelance type designer — though often in collaboration with Font Bureau — for a wide range of clients, including the Hamilton Wood Type Museum.
Thus, Carter is unique in having designed type in every medium that has existed since the era of Gutenberg: metal, wood, film and digital. His career has also spanned a surprising revolution in the profession of type design. When he was learning punchcutting, there were few professional type designers.