Typographer Matthew Carter Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Typographer Matthew Carter - Essay Example Although the process followed in the above type foundry was considered to be anachronistic, this activity helped Carter to create his own style in typography design (a sector that became soon the centre of Carter’s work in typography). During his visit in New York approximately in 1960 Carter had the chance to study the work of Herb Lubalin and Milton Glaser. It was the work of these two typographic designers that caused the transition of Carter from a ‘type-maker to a type designer’ [1]. It should be noticed that in New York Carter ‘joined Mergenthaler Linotype and began developing fonts that would exploit the new photo-typesetting technologies’ [2]. It was there that Carter’s skills in ‘calligraphic and script renderings’ [2] were revealed. In this context, the skills of Carter in typography could be considered as formulated mostly under the influence of typography trends existed in 1960’s in New York (of course his work n ear his father was an important factor for the development of Carter’s skills in typography). Carter has been based primarily on earlier designer’s work adding his own style. The value of the work of earlier designers on the development of Carter’s skills can be identified in the case of Galliard, ‘designed for Mergenthaler Linotype in 1978 and based on Robert Granjon’s forms of the mid-16th century, discovered during Carter’s research at the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp in the 1950s’ [1]. Generally, it could be stated that ‘Carter’s outstanding knowledge of type and its history has not led him to be fastidious or conservative in his attitude towards the democratisation and instability of type in the digital environment’ [1]. In fact, Carter managed to combine the style of earlier typography designers with his own personal style in order to create a series of fonts that are considered to be unique in terms of t he style and the method used for their production. Moreover, Carter has