MATTHEW CARTER
Zuzana Licko
Typography
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Second only to the typographic and book-making explosion of Gutenberg and the 15th century, the late 1900s saw an extraordinary amount of innovation, perhaps best characterized in the work of the type designers Matthew Carter and Zuzana Licko. Both émigrés to the United States, both articulate, passionate, technical, open, adaptable, detail-oriented, commercially and critically successful—and yet working in completely differen visual vocabularies—Carter and Licko offer a fascinating snapshot of twentieth century typography.
"Matthew Carter is often described at the most widely read man in the world" — Wilkinson, Alec Carter started his career making metal type by hand in the Netherlands, grew up in England, and currently creates digital type in his own foundry, Carter & Cone, in Massachusetts. His is the story of the transition from metal to digital type. Tweak that time frame by three short decades, and you have Licko, who started her career at the advent of digital type. She came to the United States from Czechoslovakia and currently designs with her foundry Emigré.
A Punch Above Matthew Carter was born in 1937 in London, England. As the son of the typographer, type historian and book designer Harry Carter (1901-1982), Matthew Carter had an early indoctrination in the field. He enrolled at Oxford University, but instead took a gap year to intern at the Joh Enschedé Type Foundry in the Netherlands. This is very important to understanding his historical context, because while there he learned the art of punch cutting by Jan van Krimpen’s assistant, P. H. Raedisch. Very few contemporary typographers can boast this experience with physical metal type and the transition to digital type. It gives him a perspective that may be uniquely his own in contemporary type design: “As one of the last people to have learned the art of making metal type by hand, Carter knows letters with greater intimacy than most; not just the form of the letter but its counter form, the whole volume of space occupied by the letter, as well as the implications for the space it shares with the next letter and the whole combination of letters on a page. Carter has compared the design process to knitting: beginning with an h and an o, which give the height of ascending strokes and the curves, and applying the decisions made about these “control” characters to the rest of the alphabet”. (Matthew Carter / Designing Modern Britain - Design Museum Exhibition)
Free, Open, Diverse Zuzana Licko was born in 1961 in communist Czechoslovakia. Her family emigrated to California when she was eight years old. She studied Graphic Communications at the University of California, Berkeley, graduating in 1984. Licko was born during a time when students were questioning the constrained Modernist and International Style, and moving toward a more free, open, diverse, instinctive and emotional Postmodern style.
“A MYSTERY IS THE MOST STIMULATING FORCE IN UNLEASHING THE IMAGINATION� Over the course of her career Licko was able to take advantage of the huge technological strides made possible by the introduction of the first Apple Macintosh personal computer in 1984, Adobe Postscript, True Type, and OpenType formats, and the explosion in desktop publishing. Unlike Matthew Carter, she did not start with physical type. She professes to have discovered and embraced her career with the advent of the desktop computer, and accordingly, her career mirrors the trajectory of digital type.
Émigrés It is notable that both Mr. Carter and Ms. Licko were born in countries that are now European Union, had significant Dutch influences in the earliest stages of their careers, and émigrated to the United States where their careers flourished. One significant difference between these typographers is that Zuzana Licko was born in Czechoslovakia during communist rule and emigrated to the United States as a child. Although she doesn’t remember much of her childhood in Czechoslovakia, she credits it with giving her a different perspective and questioning nature. Licko’s Dutch husband, Rudy VanderLans, started the magazine Emigré with other Dutch artists, and it became the name of their type foundry. Like Matthew Carter, Zuzana Licko works internationally, with clients around the globe.
While their national origins lent them a grounding approach to their work, they are both living in an era where boundaries are crossed digitally and typefaces can be sold and delivered with a few clicks on their Mac. Licko, in an interview, recounts that it wasn’t always so: “The mid to late 80s was an exciting time to be a graphic designer and type designer. The technology was growing before our eyes, and we could hardly wait to explore this unchartered territory. At this time, most designers were rejecting the Mac. So those of us who did like the Mac would find each other and we’d visit each others studios. Remember, this was before the internet and email, so sharing ideas was still done by meeting people in person. In those early days everybody stopped by our office: April Greiman, Matthew Carter, Dan Friedman, Jeffery Keedy, Jonathan Barnbrook, Erik Spiekermann, Gerard Unger, Erik van Blokland and Just van Rossum, Wolfgang Weingart, Max Kisman, Ed Fella, John Downer... People either wanted to share experiences and knowledge or were curious what this new little computer was all about”.
“... A typeface ... is a rhythm.
The beat of
the written language. The stride of the letters marching across the page” Metal to Digital Mr. Carter’s career could be used as a textbook for twentieth century typography, especially considering the immeasurable influence of being the son of Henry Carter. “[Matthew] Carter has been directly involved with all aspects of typography in its technological evolution—from metal, to photocomposition, to digital—continuously pushing the technological envelope as it relates to typefaces and visual communications. Carter may be, in fact, the last person to have learned, professionally, the art of making metal type, a process unchanged since Gutenberg’s invention of adjustable type”. (Wayne, “Typographically Speaking: The Art of Matthew Carter”) Not only that, but Carter is also one of the last living typographers to transition through movable type, photo type, super computers, optical character read, desktop publishing, Adobe Postscript, laser printers, TrueType, OpenType formats, and the internet. “Matthew Carter cites the laser-printer as the most revolutionary technological innovation available to his trade. ‘Quality is got at the proofing stage’ he says, and confesses to burning up reams of paper ‘in the passage from the ridiculous to the sublime’ which unites all creative endeavour. ‘For the first time in 536 years a type designer could see what he or she was doing.’” (Matthew Carter / Designing Modern Britain Design Museum Exhibition)
Indeed, Matthew Carter is masterful at attention to detail. His typefaces are so senstive to where they will be used and their readability, that he is sought after by organizations such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, Yale University, Time, Newsweek, National Geographic, the Guardian, Wired, the Boston Globe. In addition, he created Bell Centennial to be used by AT&T in the phone book, and Galliard to be used by the United States Postal Service on stamps. Mr. Carter has created the following typefaces: Alisal, Bell Centennial, Big Caslon, Big Figgins, Carter Sans, Cascade Script, ITC Charter, Charter BT, Dutch 811, Elephant, Engravers’ Oldstyle 205, Freehand 471, ITC Galliard, Gando, Georgia, Helvetica Compressed, Mantinia, Meiryo, Miller, Monticello, Nina, Olympian, Rocky, Shelley Script, Skia, Snell Roundhand, Sophia, Stilson, Tahoma, Verdana, Walker, Wilson Greek, Wrigley, and Yale. Licko’s timely emigration to San Francisco as a child perfectly positioned her in the Postmodern era to experience the revolutionary birth of the Apple computer, desktop computing, the internet, and the explosion of open type. In fact, her professional life was defined by the introduction of the Apple Computer and rapid technological advances. This powerful machine revolutionized typography. Here is Licko’s perspective: “The Macintosh was unveiled at the time I graduated. It was a relatively crude tool back then, so established designers looked upon it as a cute novelty. But to me it seemed as wondrously uncharted as my fledgling design career. It was a fortunate coincidence; I’m sure that being free of preconceived notions regarding typeface design helped me in exploring this new medium to the fullest. It’s interesting how the gradual sophistication of my type design abilities has been matched by advances in the Apple Macintosh’s capabilities, so it has contiued tobe the ideal tool for me”. (Eye Magazine)
Type is a
With the addition of Adobe Postscript, TrueType, and OpenType formats, it became much easier for typographers to create larger and infinitely more refined typefaces. These technological advances helped to pull typography out of the control of large foundries and develop an industry of independent designers and typeface designers. That meant that type designers could move beyond the fear of needing to create a mainstream font that had narrow chances of being bought by big foundries. Small foundries invented themselves, giving designers control of their style, direction, and clients. The industry exploded with fonts and personalities.
beautiful group of letters, not a group of beautiful letters� Licko took great advantage of that milieu, creating typefaces that were anything but classic. Her letters have attitude, personality, and style to spare. Ms. Licko has created the following typefaces: Base 9 and 12, Base 900, Base Monospace, Citizen, Dogma, Electrix, Fairplex, Filosofia, Hypnopaedia, Journal, Lo Res 1985 and 2001, Lunatix, Matrix, Matrix II, Modula, Mrs Eaves, Mrs. Eaves XL, Mr Eaves Sans, Mr Eaves Sans XL, Narly, Oakland, Oblong, Puzzler, Quartet, Senator, Soda Script, Solex, Tall Pack, Tarzana, Totally Gothic, Triplex Variex, and Whirligig. Although Licko is predominantely postmodern, she is also very aware of historical type, as evidenced for example her Baskerville revivial, Mrs Eaves.
In Short Twentieth century typographic history is represented by the prolific and masterful type designers, Matthew Carter and Zuzana Licko. Mr. Carter witnessed the transition from Gutenberg’s metal type to contemporary digital type. And it is because he enthusiastically embraced those daunting changes that he is so successful and renowned today. It is no small typographic irony that scores of other designers resisted changes and fell off the pages of history. Ms. Licko also harnessed the power of the personal computer and the digital revolution. The courage and creativity of these typographers enlighten recent typographic history, embellish contemporary typographic choices and imagine the promise of the typographic future.
“The most popular typefaces are the
easiest to read their popularity has made them disappear from conscious cognition. It becomes impossible to tell if they are easy to read because they are commonly used, or if they are
commonly used because they are easy to read.�
Cited Béjean, Pascal. “Étapes Magazine: Interview with Zuzana Licko.” Emigre Fonts. Étapes, 2010. Web. 28 Oct. 2012. <http://www.emigre.com/Licko6.php>. Dover, Caitlin. “Print Magazine: Interview with Zuzana Licko.” Emigre Fonts. Print Magazine, June 2010. Web. 28 Oct. 2012. <http://www.emigre.com/Licko5.php>. Earls, David. “Designing Typefaces.” Emigre Fonts. Rockport Publishers, 2002. Web. 28 Oct. 2012. <http://www.emigre.com/Licko4.php>. Labarre, Suzanne. “Typography Legend Matthew Carter Wins $500K Genius Grant.” Co. Design. Fast Company, 2010. Web. 28 Oct. 2012. <http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662385/ typography-legend-matthew-carter-wins-500k-genius-grant>. Licko, Zuzana. “Zuzana Licko Answers Frequently Asked Questions.” Emigre Fonts. N.p., 2000. Web. 28 Oct. 2012. <http://www.emigre.com/Licko2.php>. “Matthew Carter / Designing Modern Britain - Design Museum Exhibition:Design/Designer Information.” Design Museum. Design Musum+ British Council, n.d. Web. 28 Oct. 2012. <http://designmuseum.org/design/matthew-carter>. Miller, J. Abbott. “Matthew Carter.” AIGA. The American Institute of Graphic Arts, 1997. Web. 28 Oct. 2012. <http://www.aiga.org/medalist-matthewcarter/>. Re, Margaret, Matthew Carter, Johanna Drucker, and James Mosley. Typographically Speaking: The Art of Matthew Carter. New York, NY: Princeton Architectural, 2003. Print. Rubinstein, Rhonda. “Eye Magazine: Interview with Zuzana Licko.” Emigre Fonts. Eye Magazine, 2002. Web. 28 Oct. 2012. <http://www.emigre.com/Licko1.php>. Saslow, Rachel. “Arts Beat: Type Designer Matthew Carter at Corcoran Gallery of Art.” Washington Post. The Washington Post, 19 Feb. 2009. Web. 28 Oct. 2012. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/18AR2009021803330.html>. “Zuzana Licko and Rudy VanderLans: 1997 AIGA Medal.” AIGA. Ed. Michael Dooley. The American Institute of Graphic Arts, 1998. Web. 28 Oct. 2012. <http://www.aiga.org/medalist-zuzanalickoandrudyvanderlans/>.
COLOP H ON
DESIGNER: COURSE:
LINDA FITTANTE TYPE III
PROFESSOR:
FRANCHESKA GUERERRO
TYPEFACES:
COVER: COVER DESIGN:
BELL CENTENNIAL, BASE NINE ITC GALLIARD, WHIRLIGIG
BODY TEXT:
ITC GALLIARD
PATTERNS:
SNELL ROUNDHAND, WHIRLIGIG, NARLY
QUOTES: LARGE LETTERS:
SODA, ELECTRIX, MRS EAVES, BASE NINE BELL CENTENNIAL, SOFIA, BASE NINE