for screen viewing, created by Matthew Carter
Typefaces like Mercury, Retina, and Bell Centennial were designed specifically for physical, printed products. Verdana, on the other hand, was designed specifically for the computer screen. Designer Matthew Carter created it for Microsoft in 1996 with the goal of legibility on a computer screen in mind. To do that, he made sure of a few things: one was that adjacent letters, even when bolded, never touched (meaning they wouldn’t bleed into each other). Another was a large x-height, as well as large counters — the open spaces inside an a or an o. And he made sure that similar-looking letters, like a lowercase L, 1, and i, all were distinct, according to MoMA.
Seven of Carter’s typefaces are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art.
Read more about Matthew Carter here
Watch his Ted Talk here
