The Carter Sans typeface family is a robust, sophisticated design that melds distinction and clarity in perfect proportions.

Carter Sans is available in 8 styles
By Matthew Carter & Dan Reynolds

Carter Sans™ is a typeface designed by Matthew Carter for the International Typeface Corporation. It was released in 2011. I happily worked on the Carter Sans project for several months in 2010. The Monotype press had some good background information about the design, so I’ve quoted some excepts from it here: “‘We approached Matthew, one of the world’s most accomplished type designers, to head the design of a new sans serif family for our ITC library,’ said Allan Haley, director of words and letters at Monotype Imaging. ‘The result is Carter Sans—an exceptionally beautiful design that reflects a spirit of distinction and authenticity, perfectly suited to our ITC collection.’

“Carter Sans is a ‘sans serif with stroke endings that show the effect of the chisel more than the pen,’ according to Carter. He was inspired by the work of his friend, the late Berthold Wolpe, and integrated the humanistic overtones, hearty shapes and the bold simplicity of Wolpe’s Albertus typeface, which Wolpe completed for Monotype in 1940, modelling characters to resemble letters carved into bronze. While designing Carter Sans, Carter collaborated with Dan Reynolds, a senior type designer at Monotype Imaging’s Linotype subsidiary. Reynolds oversaw character set development and font production and also designed the small caps to complement Carter’s old style figures. ‘Carter Sans is ideally suited for display copy as well as text composition, thanks to the close collaboration between Matthew and Dan,’ Haley said.”

Pre-release, the typeface was first used by Pentagram in their work for a New York ADC Gala in November, and also for the Yale University Art Gallery. I am quite curious to see how designers will take to the typeface, and what sorts of projects they will use it in.

It was an honor to be involved in this project. I think that the role I played could best be described as an “assist” (and maybe their is some sports metaphor that is even more appropriate than this…). Any credit for the quality of the design should go to Matthew Carter.

Carter Sans is a face with an inscriptional quality to it. The family has eight fonts: regular, italic, medium, medium italic, semibold, semibold italic, bold, and bold italic. All fonts include small caps. Each font has proportional oldstyle figures as the default figure style, but tabular OsFs, proportional and tabular lining figures, small cap figures, superiors, inferiors, numerators and denominators are available in each font via OpenType features.

Colin Ford selected Carter Sans for Typographica.org’s Favorite Typefaces of 2011. Carter Sans is a trademark of Monotype ITC Inc. and may be registered in certain jurisdictions.

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Invert background

Every typeface has its own inherent rhythm, created by the designer who made the font. With typefaces that are intended for use in body text, it is primarily this rhythm that will make the typeface readable. But there are additional factors that go into the making of a good text face: the space between the letters, the degree of contrast in the letters’ strokes, as well as the x-height and relative size of the whitespace inside of the letters. Not every typeface that works well in text will apply all of these factors in the same way, but all good ones will have many of these features in common. 1234567890

36 px

Every typeface has its own inherent rhythm, created by the designer who made the font. With typefaces that are intended for use in body text, it is primarily this rhythm that will make the typeface readable. But there are additional factors that go into the making of a good text face: the space between the letters, the degree of contrast in the letters’ strokes, as well as the x-height and relative size of the whitespace inside of the letters. Not every typeface that works well in text will apply all of these factors in the same way, but all good ones will have many of these features in common. 1234567890

32 px

Every typeface has its own inherent rhythm, created by the designer who made the font. With typefaces that are intended for use in body text, it is primarily this rhythm that will make the typeface readable. But there are additional factors that go into the making of a good text face: the space between the letters, the degree of contrast in the letters’ strokes, as well as the x-height and relative size of the whitespace inside of the letters. Not every typeface that works well in text will apply all of these factors in the same way, but all good ones will have many of these features in common. 1234567890

26 px

Every typeface has its own inherent rhythm, created by the designer who made the font. With typefaces that are intended for use in body text, it is primarily this rhythm that will make the typeface readable. But there are additional factors that go into the making of a good text face: the space between the letters, the degree of contrast in the letters’ strokes, as well as the x-height and relative size of the whitespace inside of the letters. Not every typeface that works well in text will apply all of these factors in the same way, but all good ones will have many of these features in common. 1234567890

22 px

Every typeface has its own inherent rhythm, created by the designer who made the font. With typefaces that are intended for use in body text, it is primarily this rhythm that will make the typeface readable. But there are additional factors that go into the making of a good text face: the space between the letters, the degree of contrast in the letters’ strokes, as well as the x-height and relative size of the whitespace inside of the letters. Not every typeface that works well in text will apply all of these factors in the same way, but all good ones will have many of these features in common. 1234567890

18 px

Every typeface has its own inherent rhythm, created by the designer who made the font. With typefaces that are intended for use in body text, it is primarily this rhythm that will make the typeface readable. But there are additional factors that go into the making of a good text face: the space between the letters, the degree of contrast in the letters’ strokes, as well as the x-height and relative size of the whitespace inside of the letters. Not every typeface that works well in text will apply all of these factors in the same way, but all good ones will have many of these features in common. 1234567890

14 px
Invert background

Every typeface has its own inherent rhythm, created by the designer who made the font. With typefaces that are intended for use in body text, it is primarily this rhythm that will make the typeface readable …

80 %

Every typeface has its own inherent rhythm, created by the designer who made the font. With typefaces that are intended for use in body text, it is primarily this rhythm that will make the typeface readable …

60 %

Every typeface has its own inherent rhythm, created by the designer who made the font. With typefaces that are intended for use in body text, it is primarily this rhythm that will make the typeface readable …

40 %

Every typeface has its own inherent rhythm, created by the designer who made the font. With typefaces that are intended for use in body text, it is primarily this rhythm that will make the typeface readable …

20 %

Try Carter Sans

Try in Typecast
  • Size
    • 20px
  • Leading
  • Color
    • #111111
  • Background
    • #ffffff
  • Columns
  • Width
Play with the sample text or just type your own …

Every typeface has its own inherent rhythm, created by the designer who made the font. With typefaces that are intended for use in body text, it is primarily this rhythm that will make the typeface readable. But there are additional factors that go into the making of a good text face: the space between the letters, the degree of contrast in the letters’ strokes, as well as the x-height and relative size of the whitespace inside of the letters. Not every typeface that works well in text will apply all of these factors in the same way, but all good ones will have many of these features in common. 1234567890

Carter Sans is available on:

Fonts.com MyFonts FontShop LinoType