Son of Harry Carter, Royal Designer for Industry, contemporary British type designer and ultimate craftsman, trained as a punchcutter at Enschedé by Paul Rädisch, responsible for Crosfield's typographic program in the early 1960s, Mergenthaler Linotype's house designer 1965–1981.

Carter co-founded Bitstream with Mike Parker in 1981. In 1991 he left Bitstream to form Carter & Cone with Cherie Cone.

He has in recent years designed Verdana and Georgia for Microsoft; these fonts are tuned to be extremely legible even at very small sizes on the screen.

In 1997 he was awarded the TDC Medal, the award from the Type Directors Club presented to those "who have made significant contributions to the life, art, and craft of typography”.