TYPE DESIGN INFORMATION PAGE last updated on Mon Apr 15 06:33:47 EDT 2024

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Matteson Typographics [Steve Matteson]

Foundry, est. 2016 by Steve Matteson, the designer of Open Sans, Monotype's Futura Now and branding typefaces for clients such as Toyota, Microsoft and Unilever. His typefaces range from revivals of early letterpress fonts by Fred Goudy to contemporary branding designs. A partial list:

• Open Sans and Open Serif (2018). He describes Open Serif as not quite Veronese, not quite Egyptian. It has interesting Open Serif Open and Open Serif Inline subfonts. Open Sans was a major open source typeface, but despite its name, Open Serif is, quite illogically, not free.
• Open Sans Soft (2021). A rounded version of Open Sans, in 20 styles.
• Provan Formal (2020; 16 styles), Provan Inline (one style) and Provan (16 styles). Provan is a contemporary humanist sans serif with roots in calligraphy and incised letters.
• Revivals of typefaces by Frederic Goudy in 2018, except when explicitly indicated:
  • Goudy National: Frederic Goudy designed National Old Style Roman in 1916. It is loosely based on a logo he lettered for the National Biscuit Company in 1901. Steve Matteson expanded on Goudy's original by designing a bold, semibold and matching italics.
  • Newstyle (2018). After Goudy's Newstyle (1921), a semi-Venetian typeface.
  • Tory. A digitization of the blackletter typeface Tory Text, designed in 1935 by Frederic Goudy in the spirit of the lettres batarde found Geoffroy Tory's Champs Fleury.
  • Goudy Titling. It is based on the two inch wood engravings Frederic Goudy made for his book The Trajan Capitals.
  • Goudy Type (2018). A revival of Goudtype (Frederic Goudy, ATF, 1916). One of Goudy's least memorable, even mediocre, esigns.
  • Village. Frederic Goudy's Village typeface was originally used exclusively for his Village Press publications. Designed in 1902, Village is a Venetian book face with sturdy, open forms. Matteson's revival joins those of David Berlow (1994), Paul Hunt (2005) and Ivan Louette (2016).
  • Companion Old Style (2021). After a 1927 typeface by Goudy.
• Sweet Nancy (2018): a monoline connected script typeface with a nostalgic, yet modern feel.
• Union Station (2018) is a rugged Americana typeface based on the transit scroll lettering displayed in Denver's Union Station.
• Futura Now (2020, Monotype). A 107-style family by Steve Matteson, Terrance Weinzierl, Monotype Studio and Juan Villanueva, that includes variable fonts as well as subfamilies called Text, Display, Headline, Inline, Outline, Shadow and Script.
• Bierstadt (2021). A possible replacement of Calibri in some Microsoft apps in 2021. Steve Matteson: Microsoft had requested a new typeface in the grotesque sans serif genre, a style defined by block-style letters without calligraphic flourish or contrast between thick and thin strokes. Helvetica, created by Switzerland's Haas Type Foundry in 1957, is the most famed example. Swiss typographers gravitated to grotesque designs like Helvetica because of their suitability for grid-based typography. In today's world, I believe a grotesque typeface's voice needs a bit of a human touch to feel more approachable and less institutional. Bierstadt's systematic design contains organic touches to help humanize digital environments and soften the regimented order of grid typography. Microsoft already has Arial---which has many attributes from grotesque types preceding Helvetica---and my approach was to design a sans serif which would contrast with Arial by being far more mechanical and rationalized. The terminal endings are precisely sheared at 90 degrees---modern note contrasting the softer, angled endings in Arial---and a lack of somewhat fussy curves found in Arial's a, f, y and r..

Interview by Laura Busche in 2022. One answer stands out in Laura's piece, when she asked What makes a good typeface, in your opinion? Steve's reply: I see a lot of student work where they will try to make every letter unique. While there is a place for that, the trick in a typeface is to build harmony throughout. If you introduce something that is really disruptive, or not part of the DNA, it looks foreign. People might also stumble on reading it. There is a tendency to say "I want to do a lot of swash caps and flourishes," but you have to think again about what Chuck Bigelow said: is it solving a problem, to have all of these extra features? It may be satisfying to the designer, and there is nothing wrong with that, but when you think of the end-user and how they might put these letters together, it may be very complex. When shopping for type, don’t let tons and tons of alternates necessarily sway you. That might be a lot of frosting with no cake. I think that typography should be such that it sustains the rhythm and contains enough flourish to retain the interest of the reader. There is a fine balance there.

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INTERNAL LINKS
Commercial fonts (small outfits) ⦿ Frederic William Goudy ⦿ Venetian or antiqua typefaces ⦿ Monoline script fonts ⦿