You’d think that by 2025 I would be sick of anything addressing the “future” by now. Having lived through the 60s through 90s visionary predictions of a pessimistic future – and having been a Philip K. Dick fan until well into the 2000s – I’ve had more than enough dystopian predictions come true. I look at the future as a fearsome spectre, which should mean that any symbolic references must cause me to feel the sting of future shock. Nevertheless, I continue to be fascinated with futuristic art and design.
Pieter van Rosmalen’s Archive Matrix typeface in action.
Routinely I am seduced by symbolism – such as futuristic typefaces – that represents bright lives ahead, despite knowing in my heart and head that the only brightness in store for us is caused by the intensity of damaging sun-rays burning holes in earth’s fragile atmosphere. With the caveat that I’m not in favor of the planet’s forthcoming destruction, I am quite fond of Pieter van Rosmalen’s design of Archive Matrix (2023). The face is made with “dot matrices to build the structure and subtle contrast of its futuristic letterforms,” he says in his specimen description. And what I find very appealing is the contrast within each letter: a juxtaposition of heavy (large) and light (small) dots, which gives the convincing allusion that static lines of type are fading in and out as if on a dot-matrix display or TV screen.
Pieter van Rosmalen’s Archive Matrix typeface in action.
Dot-matrix letterforms tend to have a nostalgic air dating back to the 80s and the initial digital typographic era. They may also seem quaint – if not passe – by standards of today. However, van Rosmalen’s mathematically precise design, notably in the Cyrillic version, brings the future-past into the future-present. The structure of Archive Matrix in larger sizes is decidedly modern; in smaller weights it feels like letters on a primordial computer screen. Either way, it works well.
It may seem, at first glance, that there are limited applications for Archive Matrix, but that ignores its uncanny potential for adding movement to a text.