I missed this last month: living legend Matthew Carter is apparently the first type designer to deliver a talk at TED.

The reaction from the audience was polite but hardly rapturous, which many in the design community have taken as a reminder of how obscure our professional passions really are. It’s a reasonable reaction; Carter is one of the most impressive figures in the design community, and if he can’t inspire an appreciation for type in an audience primed for new ideas in the way TED attendees are, that illuminates a harsh but valuable context. As much as we hoped the opposite could be true, it turns out working with fonts is not a road to rock stardom.