If you’re a regular reader of this blog then you know that here at 121 Creative – we are proud typography nerds. To us, typography is an art form and we’re not ashamed to admit that seeing beautifully designed typography makes us swoon a little (OK – a lot!).
But we forgive you if you’re not yet being as devoted a typography fan as we are – and in case you’re still not entirely sure what on earth typography is (or why it’s important), we present the 121 typography tutorial!
What it typography anyway?
OK – first things first – typography is not just picking a pretty font!
In the words of fellow typography fanatic – Robert Bringhurst – it is the craft of endowing human language with durable visible form. In other words, the goal of typography is to bring your words to life and it includes every aspect of a design from the colour to the typeface – even the teeny tiny spaces between each letter.
What’s the point?
To the layman, it can seem like it’s all just about making things beautiful, but it’s all so much more complex than that. First and foremost you want your text to be readable – but you also want your typography to tell a story. Every letter should be communicating with your audience.
And it’s not just the big stuff like your headings or website navigation that you have to consider – even the boring plain content text that you probably don’t even pay that much attention to, needs to be selected with your ‘typography hat’ on.
Not convinced?
Imagine picking up the New York Times and finding the entire thing printed in 18pt bright pink Curlz MT font it would put a dent in the credibility of the content don’t you think?
Or what if you opened your Twitter app and all the tweets were 140 characters or less of 10pt Brush Script MT? Your eyes would probably begin to water before you got through the first ‘what I had for breakfast’ tweet.
So next time you’re online (hey! you’re online right now!) take a moment to consider the typography in the designs you see – we promise – typography really is a thing of beauty!
