Verdana
Matthew Carter’s screen typeface of 1996 – drawn pixel by pixel to be read at small sizes.
As the web grew, typefaces were needed that were legible on low-resolution screens. Microsoft commissioned Verdana and Georgia from Matthew Carter and gave them away free as part of Core fonts for the Web.
The forms started from the pixel grid rather than print. The typeface is protected, so only a drawing is shown.
Materials: Digital font with hand-tuned bitmaps
Manufacture: Drawn for Microsoft, with hinting by Tom Rickner controlling how the letters are rendered in pixels.
A large x-height and wide letters.
Generous spacing between characters.
Clearly distinct I, l and 1.