Type is Everywhere!

Every typeface you see has been painstakingly designed to have its own personality or voice.
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​Where did all these typefaces come from and why? 

Evolution of Type

Type evolves, it is influenced by technological advances and culture (political, social, academic, artistic, etc):

• Evolved from one-of-a-kind handwritten scripts (pre-1400) to printed technologies - this changed the nature of written communication so much that the term "typography" was coined to describe it.
• Current digital typographic innovations continue to push the boundaries of type use in design.
• Typographic quality is based on reproducibility.

Learn more about the History of Typeface.

Basics of Type

Download the Adobe Typography Primer to learn more about the type topics below:

• Typographic Measurements
• Classifications of Type
• Variations on a Theme

• Type Specifications
• Spacing, Copyfitting
• Designing with Type

• Choosing and Using Typefaces
• And more...

Explore

Artists

• Christopher Wool
• Marian Bantjes
• Paul Rand - Type Talk Interview
• Stefan Sagmeister, Happiness by Design Ted Talk

Reading List

• Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writer, Editors, & Students by Ellen Lupton available | Amazon
• The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst | Amazon​
• Incredible Histories of Your Favorite Fonts | HuffPost
• Letter | Thinking with Type

Tutorials

• Anatomy of Type | Thinking with Type
• Arabesque: Graphic Design from the Arab World and Persia by Ben Wittner |  Amazon
• Kern Me | Kern Type, a kerning game - for other typographic games visit Mashable's article - 18 Insanely Addictive Font Games 
• Fonts in Use | Web resource

Terminology

• Font - a complete set of letterforms, numerals, and signs
• Letterform - the particular style and form of each individual letter of our alphabet. 
• Italics - letterforms that slope to the right
• Sans serif - a typeface with no serifs
• Serif - a small element added to the upper or lower end of the main stroke of a letterform.
• Stroke - a straight or curved line forming a letter.
• Typeface - the design of a single set of letterforms, numerals, and signs unified by consistent visual properties created by a type designer the design you see: the style, look, feel of a specific font
• Type family - several font designs contributing a range of style variations based upon a single typeface design (light, medium, and bold weights including italics.)
• Type style - modifications in a typeface that create design variety while retaining the essential visual character of the face. Include variations in weight, width, angle, and elaborations on the basic forms (outline, shaded, decorated).
• Typography - Traditionally defined as the study, use, and design of sets of letterforms

Note: Typeface is the family, while font is each individual member of the family.

For more terms visit Adobe Typographic Terms List [PDF]
​or view An Illustrated Glossary of Typographic Terms on Canvas Learn