Matthew Butterick
Quick Facts
Biography
Matthew Butterick is an American typographer, lawyer, writer, and computer programmer. He received the 2012 Golden Pen Award from the Legal Writing Institute for his book Typography for Lawyers, which started as a website in 2008 based on his experience as a practicing attorney. He has worked for The Font Bureau and founded his own website design company, Atomic Vision (purchased by Red Hat in 1999). Expanding Typography for Lawyers, Butterick published Practical Typography as a "web-based book" in July 2013. Butterick graduated with a BA in visual and environmental studies from Harvard University. He later earned a JD at the University of California, Los Angeles and was admitted to the State Bar of California in 2007.
Typefaces
Butterick’s typeface designs include:
For Font Bureau
- Wessex (1993), transitional text serif inspired by Bulmer and Caledonia
- Herald Gothic (1993), a bevelled sans-serif
- Berlin Sans (1994, part), a flared sans-serif
- Hermes (1995), a blocky sans-serif loosely inspired by Berthold Block
- Alix, a typewriter font
Self-released
- Equity, an updating of the 1930s body text serif design Ehrhardt. Features grades designed to suit different types of paper and printers, and separate small caps fonts intended for use in Word.
- Concourse, loosely inspired by Dwiggins' geometric sans-serif design Metro. Features stylistic alternates and small caps.
- Triplicate, a monospaced slab serif design
- Advocate, a caps-only slab and sans serif design. Reminiscent of mid-century American college sports team lettering, corporate logos and Bank Gothic. Somewhat resembles an expansion of Herald Gothic.
- Porchez, Jean François. "Equity review". Typographica. Retrieved 13 July 2015.
- Butterick, Matthew. "Equity: specimen & manual" (PDF). MBType. Retrieved 7 August 2015.
- "Concourse specimen". Concoursefont.com. Matthew Butterick. Retrieved 8 April 2016.