What is typography design?
Simply put, Typography design is the appearance of text. If you observe your everyday surroundings you will notice that typography is all around us in the form of signs, posters or product packaging. It can also be referred to the art of working with text. Something that you may be working with all the time if you create documents for your job, school or yourself.
Typography design can be an overwhelming subject, but, it does not have to be so. Once you have mastered the basics you can go a long way with minimal, yet important, information.
Listed below are some of the Typography design essentials that will help you get started:
- Types of Fonts
- Serif fonts have strokes called serifs attached to main part of the letter, this font is preferable on reading material like newspapers and magazines. Their classic look is favored for more traditional plans.
- Sans Serif does not have the strokes and is more modern, it considered more for content uploaded on blogs and websites as it is easier to read on computer and tablet screens.
- Display fonts have various styles like script, blackletter and all caps. Because of their elaborate style display fonts are limited to headings and graphics-heavy displays.
- Choosing a font
In typography every font has its own meaning and an unspoken language, casual or formal, graphics or neutral, exotic or plain, the designer needs to understand the context and the concept and then choose the font he would like to use.
- Fonts to avoid
Fonts like Comic sans, Jokerman, Curlz, and Papyrus have a reputation of being outdated and are avoided because they are explicit on their own and fail to convey the message.
Now that you know the basics, now let’s walk through the ways we can use the basics to create a design project:
- Match the attitude to your message
In typography, every font has its own personality and as a designer, you need to take a call what font has to be used depending on the message you wish to deliver. Most fonts cannot be an all-purpose brand and you need to know what font to use when. To do so brainstorming and effective communication can help the process along.
- Match the mood of your audience
Typography designers usually find it quite the task to balance what they think the font means to how the audience may interpret the font. The task of choosing the font does not end with the designer and he needs to make sure that the target audience knows what the designer is trying to convey through his art.
- Set up Hierarchy
Hierarchy plays quite the important role in typography, especially, when you need to consider the layout along with the chosen fonts. Having a good Hierarchy means easy navigation, organization, and simple ways of discovering the required information.
To sum up the above-mentioned points, there are countless tutorials for beginners who are looking to take up typography design. But at the end of it all, it comes down to the artist and his/her creative intuition. So go ahead and get inspired!