Matthew Butterick

Last updated

Matthew Butterick
Matthew Butterick.jpg
Born
Matthew James Butterick [1]

(1970-11-15) November 15, 1970 (age 53)
Education Harvard University (BA)
University of California, Los Angeles (JD)
Occupation(s)Writer, Typographer, Computer Programmer
SpouseJessica Coffin Butterick [2] [3]

Matthew Coffin Butterick (born November 15, 1970) [1] [4] 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, [5] which started as a website in 2008 [6] based on his experience as a practicing attorney. [7] He has worked for The Font Bureau and founded his own website design company, Atomic Vision (purchased by Red Hat in 1999). [8] Expanding Typography for Lawyers, Butterick published Practical Typography as a "web-based book" in July 2013. [9]

Contents

Butterick graduated with a BA in visual and environmental studies from Harvard University. [8] He later earned a JD at the University of California, Los Angeles and was admitted to the State Bar of California in 2007. [10]

As of November 2023, Butterick is serving as co-counsel in multiple class action lawsuits against AI companies Github Copilot, Stable Diffusion, Stability AI, Midjourney, and DeviantArt. [11]

Typefaces

Butterick's typeface designs include:

For Font Bureau

Self-released

Butterick's serif font Equity Equity Butterick.gif
Butterick's serif font Equity

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Typography</span> Art of arranging type

Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line spacing, letter spacing, and spaces between pairs of letters. The term typography is also applied to the style, arrangement, and appearance of the letters, numbers, and symbols created by the process. Type design is a closely related craft, sometimes considered part of typography; most typographers do not design typefaces, and some type designers do not consider themselves typographers. Typography also may be used as an ornamental and decorative device, unrelated to the communication of information.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Verdana</span> Humanist sans-serif font

Verdana is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter for Microsoft Corporation, with hand-hinting done by Thomas Rickner, then at Monotype. Demand for such a typeface was recognized by Virginia Howlett of Microsoft's typography group and commissioned by Steve Ballmer. The name "Verdana" is derived from "verdant" (green) and "Ana".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sans-serif</span> Typeface classification for letterforms without serifs

In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif, gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than serif typefaces. They are often used to convey simplicity and modernity or minimalism. For the purposes of type classification, sans-serif designs are usually divided into these major groups: § Grotesque and § Neo-grotesque, § Geometric, § Humanist and § Other or mixed.

In typography, a serif is a small line or stroke regularly attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter or symbol within a particular font or family of fonts. A typeface or "font family" making use of serifs is called a serif typeface, and a typeface that does not include them is sans-serif. Some typography sources refer to sans-serif typefaces as "grotesque" or "Gothic" and serif typefaces as "roman".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Typeface</span> Set of characters that share common design features

A typeface is a design of letters, numbers and other symbols, to be used in printing or for electronic display. Most typefaces include variations in size, weight, slope, width, and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthew Carter</span> British type designer (born 1937)

Matthew Carter is a British type designer. A 2005 New Yorker profile described him as 'the most widely read man in the world' by considering the amount of text set in his commonly used typefaces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emphasis (typography)</span> Typographical distinction

In typography, emphasis is the strengthening of words in a text with a font in a different style from the rest of the text, to highlight them. It is the equivalent of prosody stress in speech.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gill Sans</span> Humanist sans-serif typeface family developed by Monotype

Gill Sans is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Eric Gill and released by the British branch of Monotype from 1928 onwards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Georgia (typeface)</span> 1996 typeface by Matthew Carter

Georgia is a serif typeface designed in 1993 by Matthew Carter and hinted by Tom Rickner for Microsoft. It was intended as a serif typeface that would appear elegant but legible when printed small or on low-resolution screens. The typeface is inspired by Scotch Roman designs of the 19th century and was based on designs for a print typeface on which Carter was working when contacted by Microsoft; this would be released under the name Miller the following year. The typeface's name referred to a tabloid headline, "Alien heads found in Georgia."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cambria (typeface)</span> Serif font family

Cambria is a transitional serif typeface commissioned by Microsoft and distributed with Windows and Office. It was designed by Dutch typeface designer Jelle Bosma in 2004, with input from Steve Matteson and Robin Nicholas. It is intended as a serif font that is suitable for body text, that is very readable printed small or displayed on a low-resolution screen and has even spacing and proportions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Font</span> Particular size, weight and style of a typeface

In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece for each glyph. A typeface consists of various fonts that share an overall design.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Janson</span> Typeface

Janson is the name given to a set of old-style serif typefaces from the Dutch Baroque period, and modern revivals from the twentieth century. Janson is a crisp, relatively high-contrast serif design, most popular for body text.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rotis</span> Font superfamily; humanist sans-serif typeface

Rotis is a typeface developed in 1988 by Otl Aicher, a German graphic designer and typographer. In Rotis, Aicher explores an attempt at maximum legibility through a highly unified yet varied typeface family that ranges from full serif, glyphic, and sans-serif. The four basic Rotis variants are:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gotham (typeface)</span> Geometric sans-serif typeface

Gotham is a geometric sans-serif typeface family designed by American type designer Tobias Frere-Jones with Jesse Ragan and released through the Hoefler & Frere-Jones foundry from 2000. Gotham's letterforms were inspired by examples of architectural signs of the mid-twentieth century. Gotham has a relatively broad design with a reasonably high x-height and wide apertures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bitstream Charter</span> Serif typeface

Bitstream Charter is a serif typeface designed by Matthew Carter in 1987 for Bitstream Inc. Charter is based on Pierre-Simon Fournier’s characters, originating from the 18th century. Classified by Bitstream as a transitional-serif typeface, it also has features of a slab-serif typeface and is often classified as such.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ehrhardt (typeface)</span> Font

Ehrhardt is an old-style serif typeface released by the British branch of the Monotype Corporation in 1938. Ehrhardt is a modern adaptation of printing types of "stout Dutch character" from the Dutch Baroque tradition sold by the Ehrhardt foundry in Leipzig. These were cut by the Hungarian-Transylvanian pastor and punchcutter Miklós (Nicholas) Tótfalusi Kis while in Amsterdam in the period from 1680 to 1689.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fira (typeface)</span>

Fira Sans is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Erik Spiekermann, Ralph du Carrois, Anja Meiners, Botio Nikoltchev of Carrois Type Design and Patryk Adamczyk of Mozilla Corporation. Originally commissioned by Telefónica and Mozilla Corporation as part of the joint effort during the development of Firefox OS. It is a slightly wider and calmer adaptation of Spiekermann's typeface Meta, which was used at Mozilla's brand typeface at the time but optimized for legibility on (small) screens. With the name Fira, Mozilla wanted to communicate the concepts of fire, light and joy but in a language agnostic way to signal the project's global nature. Fira was released in 2013 initially under the Apache License and later reissued under the SIL Open Font License.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iowan Old Style</span> Typeface

Iowan Old Style is a digital serif typeface designed by John Downer and released by Bitstream in 1991.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metro (typeface)</span> Sans-Serif typeface

Metro is a sans-serif typeface family created by William Addison Dwiggins and released by the American Mergenthaler Linotype Company from 1929 onwards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Downer (sign painter)</span>

John Downer is an American sign painter, typeface and logo designer. Downer began his career as a painter of signs. Among his best-known digital fonts are Iowan Old Style, Roxy, Triplex Italic, and Brothers.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Butrick, Richard Porter (December 1979). Butrick, Butterick, Buttrick In The U.S.A., 1635-1978. Butrick. ISBN   9780960254804.
  2. "Jessica Coffin Butterick # 255763 - Attorney Licensee Search". members.calbar.ca.gov. Archived from the original on March 29, 2020. Retrieved March 29, 2020.
  3. "Matthew Butterick: Reversing the Tide of Declining Expectations". unitscale.com. Archived from the original on May 14, 2021. Retrieved July 26, 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  4. "Matthew Coffin Butterick # 250953 - Attorney Licensee Search". members.calbar.ca.gov. Archived from the original on December 3, 2020. Retrieved July 14, 2020.
  5. Legal Writing Institute. "Golden Pen Award". Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 12, 2015.
  6. Elnar, Rachel (September 29, 2013). "Matthew Butterick Gives Us Practicality". Rag Right. TypeEd. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 12, 2015.
  7. Greenwood, Arin (May 1, 2011). "Artist-Turned-Lawyer Highlights Typographic Detail in Legal Docs". ABA Journal. American Bar Association. Archived from the original on April 2, 2015. Retrieved March 12, 2015.
  8. 1 2 Heller, Steven (March 17, 2010). "Typographer at Law: An Interview with Matthew Butterick". American Institute of Graphic Artistis. Archived from the original on November 15, 2015. Retrieved March 12, 2015.
  9. Butterick, Matthew. "The economics of a web-based book: year one". Practical Typography. Archived from the original on March 12, 2015. Retrieved March 12, 2015.
  10. Butterick, Matthew. "About Matthew Butterick". Practical Typography. Archived from the original on March 15, 2015. Retrieved March 12, 2015.
  11. Knibbs, Kate (November 22, 2023). "Meet the Lawyer Leading the Human Resistance Against AI". Wired. Archived from the original on November 28, 2023. Retrieved November 28, 2023.
  12. Porchez, Jean François. "Equity review". Typographica. Archived from the original on November 1, 2021. Retrieved July 13, 2015.
  13. Butterick, Matthew. "Equity: specimen & manual" (PDF). MBType. Archived (PDF) from the original on August 28, 2021. Retrieved August 7, 2015.
  14. "Concourse specimen". Concoursefont.com. Matthew Butterick. Archived from the original on April 5, 2016. Retrieved April 8, 2016.

Further reading