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.

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.

Available from Garage Fonts website https://garagefonts.com/font/archive-matrix