{"id":58733,"date":"2022-01-17T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-17T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/creativemarket.com\/blog\/?p=58733"},"modified":"2022-01-18T07:14:02","modified_gmt":"2022-01-18T15:14:02","slug":"introducing-matteson-typographics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/creativemarket.com\/blog\/introducing-matteson-typographics","title":{"rendered":"Typefaces, Humanism, and Rhythm: Introducing Matteson Typographics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you’ve ever created or read text set in Open Sans, you’re already familiar with Steve Matteson’s work. Over the last 30 years, Matteson has designed or revived over 90 typeface families, crafting well-known typefaces like Segoe, Droid, and Carnero. His impressive list of clients includes\u00a0Microsoft, Google, Toyota, and Unilever.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, we’re honored to welcome Steve’s exceptional talent, devotion to type, and unique catalog<\/a> to Creative Market. We recently sat with him to learn more about his story and lessons learned. Read on to get a closer look at the making of an extraordinary career in type.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/span>What inspired you to design typefaces in the first place?<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I was always drawn to letters. Like many kids, I loved drawing block letters and may have had an unusual awareness of people with unique handwriting. Later on, I took calligraphy classes in high school and did some architectural lettering. That opened my eyes to handmade letters. However, it was college typography that blew my mind open to what typography really is. Letterpress printing and working with physical type drew me to letterforms in new ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This wasn’t type design per se, but it\u2019s the path that led me there. The thing about working with physical type in a letterpress environment is that it teaches you that type is a tool<\/strong>. It\u2019s just one of the resources that you use to reproduce information. You\u2019ve got drawers and drawers of metal type and go around picking through and thinking, \u201coh, this is unique\u201d or “this one fits the page I’m trying to print”. By introducing typography like this, you naturally find yourself thinking in terms of use cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mentor, Goudy award-winner Chuck Bigelow, had a great quote to express this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cToday\u2019s type designer ought to aim for designs that are made for specific needs.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

That idea rang true to me. Ultimately, type designers are making tools that leverage technology in order to communicate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was the late 80s: desktop publishing was taking off and driving new typeface designs. Throughout my career, I’ve used technology’s impact to steer my efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/span>I<\/span>s that what led you to create fonts for Microsoft and Google?<\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Yes. There was a very pivotal moment in type technology where the first TrueType fonts were being made for Microsoft Windows. I had the opportunity to be a part of the team that made these fonts. PostScript had been successful, but Microsoft and Apple were fully invested in this new TrueType technology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once again, we were seeing a tech-driven shift in typographic design. Instead of letterform design, the challenge here was to represent typefaces accurately and faithfully with a different technology. You’re taking a letterform that has been around for years and are trying to faithfully represent it with pixels instead of toner or ink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Android platform is a great example of that. When smartphones first came out, they didn\u2019t have 300 DPI screens; they were still relatively low-resolution. My brief was to design a typeface for Google that represented the user interface clearly, remained readable, and looked like it belonged to Google. The Droid font family was a result of this effort. Later on, I also designed Open Sans for Google’s brand system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/span>Were you thinking about legibility when you made Droid a serif font?<\/span><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Yes. Low-resolution display informed that early Android work. This is technology, again, impacting typographic design. Back when newspapers were offset-printed, they’d turn the press on at high speeds and use cheap paper. Letterforms, therefore, had to be designed in a way that made them robust enough to handle that kind of stress. Having that experience with offset printing helped me navigate the challenges of screen displays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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