Matthew Coffin Butterick (born November 15, 1970) is an American

typographer 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 ( leading), an ...

, lawyer, writer, and computer programmer. He received the 2012 Golden Pen Award from the

Legal Writing Institute The Legal Writing Institute (LWI) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving legal communication, building the discipline of legal writing, and improving the status of legal writing faculty across the United States. The Institute currently h ...

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 The Font Bureau, Inc. or Font Bureau is a digital type foundry based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. The foundry is one of the leading designers of typefaces, specializing in type designs for magazine and newspaper publishers. History ...

and founded his own website design company, Atomic Vision (purchased by

Red Hat Red Hat, Inc. is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina, with other offices worldwide. Red Hat has become ass ...

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 Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. He later earned a JD at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

and was admitted to the

State Bar of California The State Bar of California is California's official attorney licensing agency. It is responsible for managing the admission of lawyers to the practice of law, investigating complaints of professional misconduct, prescribing appropriate disciplin ...

in 2007. As of January 2023, Butterick is currently serving as co-counsel in multiple class action lawsuits against AI companies Github Copilot, Stable Diffusion, as well as another class action lawsuit against Stability AI, Midjourney, and DeviantArt.

Typefaces

Butterick's typeface designs include:

For Font Bureau

* Wessex (1993), transitional text serif inspired by Bulmer and

Caledonia Caledonia (; ) was the Latin name used by the Roman Empire to refer to the part of Great Britain () that lies north of the River Forth, which includes most of the land area of Scotland. Today, it is used as a romantic or poetic name for all ...

* 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 Grade most commonly refers to: * Grade (education), a measurement of a student's performance * Grade, the number of the year a student has reached in a given educational stage * Grade (slope), the steepness of a slope Grade or grading may also r ...

designed to suit different types of paper and printers, and separate

small caps In typography, small caps (short for "small capitals") are characters typeset with glyphs that resemble uppercase letters (capitals) but reduced in height and weight close to the surrounding lowercase letters or text figures. This is technicall ...

fonts intended for use in

Word A word is a basic element of language that carries an semantics, objective or pragmatics, practical semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of w ...

. * Concourse, loosely inspired by Dwiggins’ geometric sans-serif design

Metro Metro, short for metropolitan, may refer to: Geography * Metro (city), a city in Indonesia * A metropolitan area, the populated region including and surrounding an urban center Public transport * Rapid transit, a passenger railway in an urba ...

. Features stylistic alternates and small caps. * Triplicate, a monospaced slab serif design inspired by typewriter fonts such as the default face used in the

IBM Selectric The IBM Selectric typewriter was a highly successful line of electric typewriters introduced by IBM on 31 July 1961. Instead of the "basket" of individual typebars that swung up to strike the ribbon and page in a typical typewriter of the period ...

. Essentially a further development of Alix, with more variants including a proportional version and a style designed specifically for displaying code. * 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. *Heliotrope, an attempt to merge the characteristics of serif and sans serif fonts into a single typeface. It draws loose inspiration from typefaces such as

Optima Optima is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Hermann Zapf and released by the D. Stempel AG foundry, Frankfurt, West Germany in 1958. Though classified as a sans-serif, Optima has a subtle swelling at the terminals suggesting a glyphic ...

and

Albertus Albertus Magnus (c. 1200 – 15 November 1280), also known as Saint Albert the Great or Albert of Cologne, was a German Dominican friar, philosopher, scientist, and bishop. Later canonised as a Catholic saint, he was known during his li ...

References

External links

Butterick's Practical Typography website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Butterick, Matthew Lawyers from Los Angeles American typographers and type designers American instructional writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers American male non-fiction writers Living people Harvard University alumni UCLA School of Law alumni People from Ann Arbor, Michigan 1970 births 21st-century American male writers