Type designer, educator and founder of Matter of Sorts, Vincent Chan has spent his career building thoughtful, critical approaches to letterform design. In this interview, Vincent reflects on his early internship at Commercial Type in New York, how journals like Emigre shaped his thinking, and why a culture of mentorship, fairness and transparency is essential to the future of the industry. He reminds us that typography isn’t just a technical craft — it’s a cultural act.
Can you tell us a little about your first few steps in your career. Was there a moment or experience when you realised this was what you'd do as a career?
After completing a Bachelor of Visual Communication at Monash University I undertook a self-directed project during my honours year designing a typeface for an artist-run initiative called West Space. During that year I met often with my former Typography 1 teacher, Dan Milne, would had recently completed a Masters in Type and Media in the Hague. His input and network proved invaluable and the following year, after sending my typeface around to numerous foundries for feedback, I was offered an internship with Commercial Type in New York. After working as a staff type designer for two years I returned to Melbourne to complete a doctorate and concurrently establish my own practice Matter of Sorts. It was during the PhD that I really established the groundwork for my practice today and came to realise type design would become my vocation. For a long time I fought the idea of specialising so narrowly and attempted to maintain a close relationship to graphic design but slowly my own interest in design waned and I found that type design could indeed be a rich departure point.
What lessons from your career have most shaped your style and approach?
When I was learning my craft there were few resources and opportunities for type designers in Australia; I really had to connect with individuals and programs in Europe and the Americas to piece together some kind of pedagogy. This phenomenon has fundamentally shaped my approach in a few ways. My interest in teaching, learning and mentoring exemplified by a project I co-direct called Counter Forms is one clear correlation, as is my general approach to letterform design in terms of how I think about histories, place and culture. My time at Commercial Type has inevitably informed my points of references as I had direct input from Dutch, American and British type designers. My interest in marginal graphic design, specifically journals like Emigre and Dot Dot Dot has also greatly influenced my approach to practice.
Tell us about the core values or philosophies that guide your creative practice.
I think it is important to acknowledge that I am an eternal student of letters and that I have seen my perspective evolve and change as I’ve also experienced shifts in my priorities (i.e. starting a family). Generally speaking I would advocate for a critical appraisal of ones tools, ones understanding of typographic canons and how typefaces speak to and accrue value over time. I would want to promote alternative ways of thinking about pricing, distribution and licensing probing the ambiguous nature of type as both commercial and cultural phenomena.
What needs to change, so emerging and under-represented creative professionals have more opportunity, are seen and heard?
I think there needs to be a constant push back against late capitalist thinking regarding how foundries operate and think about their work and a critical appraisal of typography’s general colonial, hegemonic, white and cis-gendered canon. This translates to encouraging, sponsoring, promoting a greater diversity of typographic offerings and generally anti-monopolistic decision-making. It means sharing, being transparent and prioritising the communal over the individual.
How important is it that creative professionals find their unique voice?
I think its importance depends on the specificities of a creative industry (*cough AI*) but generally I would say this shouldn’t necessarily be point of focus but something that will fall out of a commitment to self-expression, sincerity and ones craft.
Looking ahead, what do you think are the key factors that will influence change for creative professionals?
Technology always shapes our profession, whether this is advancements in paper, ink, printing, computer chips, software, the internet, artificial intelligence. Know the capabilities, constraints, pitfalls and tendencies of the technology of the day and decide how to critically engage it towards furthering humanity and culture in the broadest sense guided by fairness, generosity and reciprocity.
How much does your city influence your work?
Not as much as it used to I suspect. Our ability to traverse place and time through the internet makes our points of references and communities so disparate and fragmented that physical locations seem to play less and less a role in practice. There are limitations to this argument, of course, but it seems technology will only further this kind of dislocation.
How much does your culture influence your work?
My culture is a product of my upbringing and education. Whilst my parents are Malaysian I was born and raised in Melbourne. After stints living in Detroit while I was teenager and in New York when I was an adult, I am largely a white-passing Melburnian for the most part. All this to say I probably have a second generation immigrant point of view on work and life.
Tell us some of your favourite, creative professionals and inspiring places in your city!
Now that I have two kids (4 and 1), I experience the world largely through their eyes, which means a lot of books and galleries and Bluey. It is a good (but largely unproductive) time. Thus I am currently inspired by the free institutions and investment in public civic life; the permanent exhibition at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, The Melbourne Museum, the narrm ngarrgu Library. I’m probably the wrong person to ask!
What should emerging creative professionals keep in mind as they begin their design career?
If possible, prioritise finding a mentor, someone who is a few steps ahead of you, that your admire, that you trust and that will speak honestly with you. That and find your community, ideally who you can meet in person. We’re mammals and we need a level of input, commiserating, banter and competition to keep us sane. Also, establish good habits that will pay off in the long run, exercise and understand the basics of money, these are unavoidable.