tuesday, november 10th, 2009
I saw infamous type designer Matthew Carter lecture at San Jose State tonight, focusing on revivalism and its place in both the history of type design and his own career. I was actually surprised to learn he's been such a prolific reviver of historical typefaces in particular; I knew he had a versatile background that seemed to cover everything from traditional serifs and sans to his screen-optimized work for Microsoft, but his work as a historian is truly incredible.
He of course brought with him a beautiful selection of type specimens to illustrate the discussion. I'd hoped to capture at least a few on my puny iPhone, but this was sadly the most coherent picture I got:
It proves I was there, I suppose, but that's about it.
He also spoke a little about Ikea's baffling decision to switch their typeface from Futura to Verdana of all things. His best guess was that their admittedly extensive needs for international character support prompted them to chose versatility over aesthetics, but I'm not sure I buy that. There are plenty of typefaces available these days with massive expert glyph sets that aren't clunky system fonts commissioned by Microsoft.
Yikes. Carter's a master of type design, but I can't say I'm a fan of this one.
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