TED Talk: Matthew Carter

Matthew Carter's TED Talk speaks about his life in typefaces and how he created the fonts Verdana and Georgia along with a number of others. Although first researching this for my own typeface design, I found Carter's working process to be most interesting.

After creating a typeface to combat the problem where a large amount of data is needed to use a serif font rather than a san serif. He created typefaces that had characters using less curved lines. When he gave his outcome to the client, they informed him that this problem had already been solved by the computer engineers which meant a larger number of fonts could be stored in a computer at once. 

Despite this, Carter persevered and started recognising his typeface Charter Roman for its aesthetic qualities rather than its technical ones. The final outcome after the change of Carter's brief had no ink to the first problem solving outcome. He notes that 'the technology did suggest something to me but it did not force my hand.'

Carter's talk has taught me that my own interest and perseverance can spur or develop projects to make them more successful in the long run. I feel like creating these problems and questioning myself could help with creating ideas and developing projects.