Typography the art and technique of arranging type! Grab Typography App.

From a descriptive and simplistic point of view, typography is the art and technique of arranging type.

Most people never think about typography. They don’t understand the psychological effect it has in relation to conveying a message.

Typography is 95% of design it’s a driving force in all forms of communication art. Can you imagine reading a magazine, checking out a website, playing with an app or watching TV without text?

Typography is, quite simply, it's central to the skills of a designer and is about much more than making the words legible. Your choice of typeface and how you make it work with your layout, grid, colour scheme, design theme and so on will make the difference between a good, bad and great design.

There are lots of typography tutorials around to help you master the discipline. But good typography is often down to creative intuition. Once you're comfortable with the basics, visit some typography resources to investigate font families and discover some font pairings that are made for each other.

There's an astonishing array of paid for and free fonts to choose from online. But with great power comes great responsibility. Just because you can choose from a vast library doesn't mean you have to, there's something to be said for painting with a limited palette, and tried and tested fonts like Helvetica continue to serve us well.

A typeface, like any form of design, is created by craftsmen over a substantial period of time, using the talent they've been honing for many years. And the benefits of a professionally designed font various weights and styles to form a complete family, carefully considered kerning pairs, multi language support with international characters, expressive alternate glyphs to add character and variety to type setting.

All typefaces are not created equally. Some are fat and wide, some are thin and narrow. So words set in different typefaces can take up a very different amount of space on the page.

The height of each character is known as its x height quite simply because it's based on the letter x. When pairing typefaces such as when using a different face to denote an area of attention it's generally wise to use those that share a similar x height. The width of each character is known as the set width, which spans the body of the letter plus a space that acts as a buffer with other letter.

When using a designer, or a design firm, make sure to review samples of their work. If you have a difficult time feeling connected to the piece, ask yourself a simple question, Is it the content that just doesn’t grab you (maybe because it’s something you have no interest in), or is it something more?

When you are reviewing drafts and you don’t question the Typography because it isn’t an issue and you get the feeling and the meaning of the content, then the design firm has done their job, and done it well.

Now that you have been given a basic overview of typography and its importance in everything from a book, to a blog, to a letter, you can take it into account when you work with a designer on your own organizations communications.

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