This is Matthew Carter. He is a typographer and to other typographers he is very famous and important. Just think of him like the Typographic Elvis. He's a big deal.
He was born in 1937 in London. His dad, Harry Carter, was also a typographer, and helped nudge him into his career. When Matthew was going to enter college he was told to stay back a year so he could be the same age as his peers who were returning from the army. During this year off his father used his typographer connections to get him an internship at a printers in the Netherlands. Matthew used the skills he learned in the Netherlands to help him get his first freelance work in London.
While in London he begin designing typefaces which became quite well known. A good example of this work is the Bell Centennial font he designed for use in phone books. After some time in the industry he and some colleagues founded the company Bitstream Inc, which focused on designing digital type. He eventually left Bitstream with a partner to form Carter & Cone where he still works today. At Carter & Cone he gained much of his typography fame for designing the fonts Georgia and Verdana, which you probably use on a daily basis on your computer. In fact you are probably reading this very blog post on a font Matthew Carter himself made.
He's spent most of his later years having to sift through heaps of praise and sort through all the numerous awards he keeps winning. He is a senior critic in Yale's design program, and also won a MacArthur Genius grant in 2010 for his continuing contributions to type. Seven of his typefaces are actually in a permanent collection in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. So aside from being the typographers typographer and having his work used by millions on a daily basis, I guess he's had a pretty good career.
Here are some links I used to find information on Mr. Carter.
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662385/typography-legend-matthew-carter-wins-500k-genius-grant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Carter
http://www.ted.com/talks/matthew_carter_my_life_in_typefaces
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_%26_Cone
http://www.macfound.org/fellows/28/
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