Typography is a crucial part of any design project, determining how text is styled and arranged. Learn everything you need to know about typography in this guide.
Graphic design is all about communicating a certain message. Often, this includes key information presented through text—such as ingredients on food packaging, the name of a band on a concert poster, or the title of a book on its cover.
All of this text must be styled and arranged in a way that’s legible, on-brand, and in harmony with other design elements on the page. Cue: the art of typography.
In this guide, we’ll explain exactly what typography is, why it matters, and the principles it’s based on. We’ll demystify essential typography terms and concepts, and share practical advice on how to choose the right type for any design.
Are you ready to become a typography pro? Let’s begin!
What is typography?
Typography is the art of designing, styling, and arranging letters and text. It considers how each individual letter looks, as well as the spacing between letters, between words, and between entire lines of text.
When you open a Google Doc, you have some control over how you style the text in your document. You can select from a range of fonts, you can adjust the size of the text, and you can tweak the spacing between each line and paragraph. If you’ve ever done that, you’ve already dabbled in typography!
Of course, typography can, and does, get a little more complex than selecting fonts in a Google Doc. In the context of graphic design—and indeed any type of design—typography helps to shape the brand identity, to effectively communicate important information, and to add visual appeal.
Throughout this guide, we’ll break down the elements, concepts, and principles that designers use when working with typography. But first, let’s consider why typography matters in the first place.
Why does typography matter and what purpose does it serve?
Typography isn’t just about making words look beautiful. It serves an important purpose in communicating information, ensuring that text is clearly legible, and shaping a strong visual brand.
Typography matters because it:
Communicates important information to the reader. If you’re browsing through a website, picking up food products in the supermarket, or reading a menu in a restaurant, all the text you encounter has been styled and arranged to present that information in a specific way. That’s typography in action!
Affects readability and accessibility. Typography has a direct impact on how easy the text is to read. Effective typography ensures that text is clear and legible, presenting information in a way that’s both comfortable and accessible. Poor typography choices, on the other hand, can render the text illegible—an incredibly frustrating experience for the person trying to read it!
Helps to establish a visual hierarchy. The way you style text on a page or screen can help you to accentuate and emphasise the most important information, directing the reader’s attention to the text you want them to read first. This helps to create a visual hierarchy, influencing how the reader consumes your designs.
Creates a strong, memorable brand. Just like colour, logos, and imagery, typography is an essential tool for expressing brand identity. Consider how Comic Sans feels playful and youthful, while Cambria feels more elegant and sophisticated.
Adds visual appeal. Typography is functional, but it’s also an art form. Choosing the right fonts, weight, and spacing all play a role in creating visual harmony and generally ensuring that the overall design is aesthetically pleasing.
Now we know why typography is important, let’s explore some common typography use cases.
Applications and examples of typography
You’ll find examples of typography in websites and apps, marketing materials (both printed and digital), as well as posters, books, and magazines.
Typography is also used in logo design, product packaging—for example, on food labels or cosmetics—and on the design of t-shirts, hats, tote bags, and other merchandise.
The difference between typography, typeface, and fonts
Now let’s get into the key elements of typography and clear up some confusion around certain terminology.
You’ve likely heard the words ‘typography’, ‘typeface’, and ‘font’ used interchangeably—but there are distinctions to be made.
Typography is the art and process of styling and arranging type (i.e. text). It involves choosing the typeface, font, size, weight, alignment, and spacing—generally determining how the text will be styled and formatted. In short, typography refers to the discipline as a whole.
Typeface refers to a particular style of lettering. Each typeface comprises a set of design features or characteristics that determine how letters, numbers, or characters will be styled. For example, whether or not the letters are styled with or without serifs (an extra line or stroke at the end of a letterform), as well as the weight, balance, spacing, and height difference between letters within the typeface. Examples of typefaces include Times New Roman, Arial, Helvetica, and Comic Sans.
Font refers to how your chosen typeface is applied. The weight and size of your chosen typeface will vary depending on your chosen font. You might choose the typeface “Arial” and then apply it in bold, size 12, italic font.
So, in the application of typography, designers first choose the typeface(s) they’ll use throughout their designs. They can then vary how the typeface is applied by choosing different fonts.
Consider how you style text in a Google Doc. In the drop-down menu, you can select your typeface—Helvetica Neue, Arial, Roboto, and so on. Click the arrow next to the typeface and you can select your font—light, normal, bold, etc.
In the screenshot shown, Helvetica Neue is our typeface and ‘Normal’ is our font:
Now we’ve explained the difference between a typeface and a font, let’s explore the concept of typefaces even further.
The 3 basic typeface classifications: Serif, sans-serif, and script
There are three basic categories of typeface: serif, sans-serif, and script.
Serif
The word serif literally means “line” or “stroke of the pen”. Serif typefaces feature these decorative little lines or “flicks” at the end of the main strokes of each character. For example, when you select the Times New Roman typeface, the capital letter ‘T’ is embellished with these extra strokes.
Examples of serif typefaces include Times New Roman, Garamond, Courier New, Baskerville, and Georgia.
Sans-serif
Sans-serif typefaces are, quite literally, without serifs. Unlike serif typefaces, they don’t feature the extra little strokes. Sans-serif typefaces are typically modern, bold, and easy to read. As such, you’ll find that most websites, apps, and digital designs use a sans-serif typeface.
Examples of sans-serif typefaces include Arial, Helvetica, Roboto, Verdana, and Tahoma.
Script
Script typefaces mimic cursive handwriting or calligraphy. They’re typically looped and flowing, just like traditional handwriting. The letters within a script typeface can be connected, semi-connected, or unconnected (a bit like joined-up and unjoined handwriting). Script typefaces aren’t as easy to read as serif and sans-serif typefaces, so they tend to be used for decorative purposes only.
Examples of script typefaces include Lobster, Pacifico, Quintessential, and Handlee.
How to choose the right typeface for any design project
Choosing the right typeface is a crucial step in any design project. So how do you go about it? Take a look at the this Type based Poster Design project by AND learner, Bibin S. In addition, here are some guidelines to help you.
Consider the medium and scope of the project
This will determine how flexible and versatile you need your typeface to be.
If you’re selecting a typeface to be used in just one context—for example, a one-off printed poster or a digital ebook—you only need to ensure that your chosen typeface works in that specific context.
However, if you’re choosing a typeface to be used throughout a company’s website, app, marketing materials, and internal documents and presentations, you’ll need to find one that works well in all those different contexts.
Align with the brand identity and the mood you want to evoke
Different typefaces and fonts have different connotations. When choosing a typeface, consider the brand identity. What brand values and characteristics should your typeface convey?
If you’re designing for a serious brand, you’ll want a professional and no-frills typeface, like Arial or Times New Roman. If you’re designing for a luxury brand, you might want something a bit more elegant and fancy. If you’re designing for a bold, playful brand, you can go for something more lighthearted like Comic Sans.
At the same time, think about your audience and the message you’re trying to convey. What kind of mood and emotions do you want to evoke? An important, serious message calls for a plain, conventional typeface. A humorous message, on the other hand, might be best delivered through a more whimsical typeface.
Prioritise readability and accessibility
Above all else, it’s critical that your typeface is clear and easy to read wherever it’s displayed. Again, this will be determined by context. If you’re designing a huge billboard ad with minimal text—say, just a big headline—you can get away with using a script typeface.
But, if you’re designing a website with lots of text, you’ll want to stick with a sans-serif typeface to ensure maximum legibility.
The 5 fundamental principles of typography
Choosing a typeface is just one aspect of typography. Once you’ve selected a typeface, you then need to think about how you’ll apply it—with the goal of ensuring clarity, readability, and visual appeal.
Here are the five fundamental principles of typography that all designers must follow.
1. Hierarchy
A fundamental principle of typography is hierarchy. If your design includes different pieces of information that vary in importance, you need to style each piece of text accordingly.
Headings, for example, can be given prominence in the visual hierarchy through their size and weight. You can also create visual hierarchy through colour, contrast, and whitespace.
Ask yourself what information the viewer should be drawn to first. This text should be bigger, bolder, and more prominent than the rest. In other words, it should stand out and catch the reader’s eye.
2. Consistency
Just like most other design elements, typography should be applied with consistency. Apply the same typefaces, font sizes, weight, and styles to related elements—for example, headings should always be styled the same, as should subheadings and body text, and so on.
Similarly, whenever you’re including long chunks of text, you’ll want to follow the same alignment. If you have some paragraphs aligned left, some aligned centre, and some aligned right, you’ll end up with a chaotic and jarring aesthetic.
Consistency helps to achieve visual harmony throughout your designs. And, in the context of digital products like websites and apps, it makes the interface much easier to learn and navigate.
3. Contrast
Contrast can be used to establish visual hierarchy and make your designs more interesting. It also plays an important role in ensuring clarity and readability.
Make sure there’s sufficient colour contrast between the text and the background it's on. At the same time, you can create contrast through different typeface pairings. You might pair a playfully designed headline full of personality with much simpler body text. This will emphasise the contrast between the two, and make your design more visually exciting.
4. Whitespace
Whitespace, or negative space, refers to the empty space around and between different elements on the page.
You need sufficient spacing between individual words, between each line of text, and between paragraphs. This tells the reader which groups of text belong together, and also ensures that text is easy to read.
And, at the big-picture level, effective use of whitespace helps to create a clean, clutter-free, aesthetically pleasing design.
5. Alignment
Alignment determines where and how your text sits on the page.
Consider the blocks of text you see in blog posts, books, newspapers, and magazines. If these blocks are aligned to the left, they sit up against the left margin—always starting from the same point. If these blocks of text are aligned right, they sit up against the right-hand margin.
If text is centre aligned, each new line will start in the middle of the page (or at the exact mid-way point between two margins). If the text is justified, it creates a solid rectangle, with each line starting and finishing flush against the left and right margins.
Left-aligned text is usually the most user-friendly option as we naturally tend to read text from left to right. Of course, this varies depending on the language and the audience.
In typography, alignment creates visual consistency and order, impacts the overall balance and harmony of the design, and makes sure that text is easy to read.
With these five principles, you can make smart typography choices in any design context.
Your ultimate typography glossary: All key terms explained
Typography jargon got you in a spin? Here are some key terms explained, ordered from A-Z.
Alignment:
The position of text in relation to the page or screen margins—for example, left aligned, right aligned, or centre aligned.
Bold:
A way of styling text (typeface) with thicker, darker strokes to create emphasis.
Character:
An individual letter, number, symbol, or punctuation mark. Characters are part of a typeface.
Counter:
The enclosed space within certain letters or characters, for example in the letter “o” or “p”.
Font:
How a particular typeface is displayed and expressed—including the weight, size, and style (such as bold or italic). See also: typeface.
Hierarchy:
The order of importance of each piece of text or information. For example: a book title will be more prominent in the visual hierarchy than, say, the year it was published.
Italics:
A typeface variant used to express emphasis. For example: “This is the best movie I’ve ever seen!”
Kerning:
The process of adjusting the space between two letters.
Leading (or line height):
The vertical space between two lines of text. For example, a paragraph of text may be single-spaced or double-spaced.
Sans-serif:
A typeface classification. Sans-serif typefaces include Arial, Roboto, and Helvetica.
Serif:
A typeface classification. Serif typefaces have extra little ‘strokes’ at the end of each letterform. Examples include Times New Roman, Baskerville, and Georgia.
Script:
A typeface classification. Script typefaces mimic traditional handwriting or calligraphy. Examples include Pacifico, Lobster, and Handlee.
Tracking:
The process of adjusting the space between all letters in a word (not just the space between two letters—that’s kerning).
Typeface:
A particular style of lettering. Arial, Times New Roman, Helvetica, and so on, are all typefaces, not fonts.
Typography:
The art and process of designing, styling, and arranging text (type).
Weight:
The thickness or heaviness of the strokes in a typeface (e.g. light, medium, semi-bold, bold).
White space:
The empty space around and between different design elements.
How to learn typography: The best courses, tutorials, and resources
Typography is one of the most important graphic design skills. And, even if you don’t have plans to start a career as a graphic designer, it’s still a fun and useful skill to learn.
Looking for a practical education in typography? Here are some free tutorials to get you started:
If you’re learning typography with a view to becoming a graphic designer, consider a full graphic design program. A credible course will cover all the fundamentals of typography and show you how to design typography for both digital and print—plus everything else you need to land your first graphic design job.
Note: All information and/or data from external sources is believed to be accurate as of the date of publication.
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