Discussion Point 2 - Micaela Alcaino

MATTHEW CARTER VS PETER SAVILLE

Matthew Carter (Born 1937) was one of the handful of designers whose type has been used by day by day by the general public. In the first half of his career he created type such as Miller and Bell Centennial for print designs. Later on in 1994 he created, now, well known fonts for Microsoft such as Verdana and Tahoma. These fonts were for onscreen use. Carter's typographic designs were consistent in their style, yet monotonous and repetitive in appearance. As one of the last people to have learnt the art of metal type, Carter had been able to examine and learn the form of letters better than most, as well as volume of the letter and the relationship between space and each letter in conjunction to a whole page of letters, focusing always on improving a typeface's readability. His early worker he had designed for the Uk magazine Private Eye (created in 1962-today). He had then created a digital type foundry called Bitstream INC, but left it to form a company with Cherie Cone called Carter and Cone. Nowadays moving to design for Apple and Microsoft. 

Carter has also manage to create for other companies such as Wired magazine, Yale University, Time and more.  He is a rare designer that has been able to move from the pre digital to the digital with great ease.

Both Saville and Carters work consist on simple type faces, so to bring order and attention to the words that are put in front of us. Although Carter's work has been mostly used for print and onscreen purposes, his effectiveness of everyday type has proved to play a large and enduring role throughout the years. Saville on the other hand has used his skill in order to place type purposefully for propaganda and records. His work has been effective in a way to bring attention to the words rather than the images on the designs, mostly using san serif fonts that jump out at the viewer. 

Peter Saville (born 1955)  is well known for his work on creating innovative record covers. Most of his early works in the late 1970's-80s (as seen to the left) contained simple or no imagery, which focused more on his use of type to stand out for the viewer. He entered the music scene after his encounter with tv presenter Tony Wilson in 1978. He was then commissioned by Factory Records to create their first poster, and had then later progressed to becoming a partner in the company. His most notably record cover designs are Joy Divisions "Unknown pleasures", Duran Duran, Wham! and New Order. His inspiration derived from Herbert Spencer's book Pioneers of Modern Typography and "New" typography propagandist Jan Tschichold, whose works are influenced by modernist designs, which are sharp, simple, minimal yet effective in bringing attention to the type on the posters, who also created fonts such as Saskia (1931) and Sabon (1966). 

Many of Savilles works were reappropriated from art and design on this era. He grew in demand as a younger generation of people in the area of propaganda had grown up knowing his works from Factory Records.  He managed to work along side clients such as Selfridges, EMI and Pringle and fashion clients such as Dior and  Stella McCartney. '


References
http://designmuseum.org/design/matthew-carter
http://www.monotypeimaging.com/ProductsServices/TypeDesignerShowcase/MatthewCarter/Biography.aspx
http://www.cubanxgiants.com/berry/300/documents/man_of_letters.pdf
http://www.designishistory.com/1980/peter-saville/
http://lovedesignetc.wordpress.com/2011/09/07/peter-saville-on-helvetica-and-typography/
http://swisslegacy.com/2009/03/13/peter-saville-qa-what-inspires-you/