TYPOGRAPHY | What is it exactly?

Typography refers to the craft of arranging type. It has been practiced since the invention of Gutenbergs’s movable type printing machine. Despite not always produced by professional typographers, typography is present in varying lengths in almost all text pieces.

Typographer, Adrian Frutiger, puts it perfectly when he says:

“If you remember the shape of your spoon at lunch, it has to be the wrong shape. The spoon and the letter are tools; one to take food from the bowl, the other to take information off the page…when it is a good design, the reader has to feel comfortable because the letter is both banal and beautiful.”

Typography is a tool that can add emotion, drama and personality to the printed matter, making it more visually appealing. It can subconsciously embed the message in the mind of the reader, making it easier for them to understand, grasp and comprehend the presented information.

Key Elements of Typography

Typeface | Commonly confused with “font”, Typeface refers to a collection of symbols, characters, numbers and letters that share the same design. It is a family of fonts that share similar features. Examples of a typeface include Baskerville, Helvetica and Garamond. Font, on the other hand, refers to a typeface that is set in a specific size, style and weight. For example, Baskerville Old Face Bold at 11 points is a font.

Line Length | Often calculated as number of words or characters in a line, line length refers to distance occupied by a block of text located between the right and the left margin.

Leading | Also known as line spacing, Leading is distance between baseline to baseline.

Kerning | Kerning refers to spacing between individual characters or letters.

Tracking | Also known as letter-spacing, tracking is almost the same as kerning but applied to a block of text, instead of individual letters.

Why Does Typography Matter?

Typography matters because it helps keep the reader’s attention on your content. Good typography allows them to focus on the message instead of focusing on the me­chan­ics of read­ing.

Typography is more than selecting fonts. It is the study of how humans read, how they perceive information, how they recognize words and how the brain processes the information. Typography is an art.