[5][6][7] He is the son of the English historian of printing Harry Carter (1901–1982) and cofounded Bitstream, one of the first major retailers of digital typefaces.

Although Carter had intended to get a degree in English at Oxford he was advised to take a year off so he would be the same age as his contemporaries who had gone into National Service.

Carter studied manual punchcutting, the method used to make moulds used to cast metal type, under P. H. Rädisch.

Despite Carter's training in the art of traditional punchcutting, his career developed at a time when metal type was rapidly being displaced by phototypesetting.

This reduced the cost of designing and using a wide range of typefaces, since type could be stored on reels of film rather than as blocks of expensively engraved metal.

In a book on Carter's career, historian James Mosley, a few years older than Carter, would write of the period of their upbringing: The Monotype classic [fonts] dominated the typographical landscape ... in Britain, at any rate, they were so ubiquitous that, while their excellent quality was undeniable, it was possible to be bored by them and to begin to rebel against the bland good taste that they represented.

Based on the work of Robert Granjon, a 16th century French engraver, Carter created the sharp, high-contrast family Galliard.

Carter's adaptation, more intended for display use than for body text, included some eccentricities of Granjon's original design, producing a result unlike many previous revivals of typefaces from the period.

The company however did receive extensive criticism for its strategy of cheaply offering digitisations of pre-existing typefaces that it had not designed, often under alternative names (for example, Times New Roman as 'Dutch 801').

[20] In his role at Bitstream, Carter designed typefaces, such as Charter, and commissioned others such as Iowan Old Style from John Downer.

[25][26] It was based on designs for a print typeface in the same style Carter was working on when contacted by Microsoft; this would be released under the name Miller some years later.

[27][28][29] Speaking in 2013 about the development of Georgia and Miller, Carter said, "I was familiar with Scotch romans, puzzled by the fact that they were once so popular ... and then they disappeared completely.

[31][32] Earlier in his career, Bell Centennial was created to be legible in telephone directories, even when printed on cheap paper at small sizes.

A retrospective of his work, "Typographically Speaking, The Art of Matthew Carter," was exhibited at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County in December 2002.

[46] Carter was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2020 Birthday Honours for services to typography and design.

[68][73] Seven of Carter's typefaces—Bell Centennial, Big Caslon, ITC Galliard, Mantinia, Miller, Verdana and Walker—have been in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art since 2011.