The admonition greets visitors as they arrive for MATTER’s eleventh annual print sale and party. High on a wall of the design studio’s cavernous warehouse space on Market Street, the two-color screen-print poster warns in severely modified Helvetica Bold: “You may not steal the font library here, nor may you bring any janky, knock off, free shit up in here. This is a fucking business.”

There’s nothing janky or knock-off about the crowd that’s shown up here — hipsters in skinny jeans, plastic-rimmed glasses and thrift-store dresses. As for any of them stealing MATTER’s font library? Not if that library comprises the eight-foot-tall plywood letters that stand like sentinels around the studio, each decorated with various prints for sale for $100 and up.

"The burden of knowledge is action," reads one four-color print tacked to a giant letter "S." Nearby, an uppercase "D" holds a poster that’s been printed with historic letterpress plates advertising bygone circus attractions. On some posters, comic-book-style word bubbles frame bold statements; on others, words and letters climb around one another like elements of an architectural facade. Nearby, T-shirts for sale pronounce "Shut up and eat your Helvetica," while $15 ladies’ underwear declares, "Do you think this kerns itself?"  Continue reading…http://bit.ly/1z9a5ur