Typography is the art of arranging type to make written language visually appealing. It involves selecting typefaces, font sizes, line spacing, letter spacing, and kerning. Well-designed typography can add emotion to communication and is used in advertising, design, and branding to draw attention or create certain feelings. The document provides examples of how type design has evolved over time and discusses typographic concepts like serifs, symmetry, and effective modern uses of typography in graphic designs.

1. ALL ABOUT
TYPOGRAPHY
BY EMILY COURDELLE

2. WHAT IS TYPOGRAPHY?
Wikipedia says:
“Typography (from the Greek words "form" and "to write") is the art and technique of arranging type to make
written language most appealing to learning and recognition. The arrangement of type involves selecting
typefaces, point size, line length, line-spacing (leading), letter-spacing (tracking), and adjusting the space
within letters pairs (kerning). Type design is a closely related craft, sometimes considered part of typography;
most typographers do not design typefaces, and some type designers do not consider themselves
typographers. In modern times, typography has been put in film, television and online broadcasts to add
emotion to communication.
Typography is performed by typesetters, compositors, typographers, graphic designers, art directors, manga
artists, comic book artists, graffiti artists, clerical workers, and everyone else who arranges type for a product.
Until the Digital Age, typography was a specialized occupation.
Digitization opened up typography to new generations of visual designers and lay users, and David Jury, Head
of Graphic Design at Colchester Institute in England, states that:
"typography is now something everybody does."

3. WHERE DID IT ALL BEGIN?
Times “New” Roman
The font that was always used in school essays and
to “go to” font for a word document is one of the
earliest forms of typography design.
William Caslon (1692/1693 – 23 January 1766), also
known as William Caslon the elder, was an English
gunsmith and designer of typefaces. The distinction and
legibility of his type secured him the patronage of the
leading printers of the day in England and on the
continent. His typefaces transformed English type design
and first established an English national typographic style.
From there people have used and created thousands
of different forms of typography typefaces. It then grew
Into using type to create an emotion or to draw attention,
etc. For example, when something is BOLD and it capital
Letters, you are instantly more drawn to it.
Where as if something is written small and light in colour,
it is harder to read and less noticeable on the page.
This is only the beginning, typography is used in very
Thought through and tactical ways, which helps in advertising,
Design, articles, branding, and much more.

4. SERIF VS. SANS SERIF
What does that actually mean?
A “serif” is the small expansion that comes from a letter, as you
can see in the example to the right. The words “sans” is French
for “without” – so basically “sans serif” means “without a serif”.
“Serifs originated in the Latin alphabet with inscriptional
lettering - words carved into stone in Roman antiquity. The
explanation proposed by Father Edward Catich in his 1968
book The Origin of the Serif is now broadly but not universally
accepted: the Roman letter outlines were first painted onto
stone, and the stone carvers followed the brush marks which
flared at stroke ends and corners, creating serifs. Another
theory is that serifs were devised to neaten the ends of lines as
they were chiselled into stone”.
Contemporary examples…
To the right are some examples of how different
companies have used Serif or Sans Serif in their
company names and logo’s. Most have actually
used sans serif, apart from Vogue, Gucci, CBS,
Hilton, Sony, and Abercrombie & Fitch.
These are all very upmarket companies, and
perhaps suggest that they don’t want to use a
“gothic” font, and keep to the classy serif fonts.

5. SYMMETRICAL VS.
ASYMMETRICAL
“There is a feeling of movement in asymmetry, that is why it seems more interesting in
art and architecture. There is freedom in asymmetry, it is not contained or inhibited,
unlike symmetry. On the downside, symmetry can be tiresome to the eye. If not done
correctly, it can look messy or confusing.” – Rachel Arandilla
The word “Asymmetrical” is the absence of symmetry. Its been proven
that asymmetry creates energy and tension, while symmetry is static and
orderly. To the right are some examples of symmetrical and asymmetrical
design…
This design to the right
is clearly very
symmetrical, and is
pleasing and “in order”
to the audience.
Everything seems
straight forward and
simple, which was done
intentionally by the
designer.

6. UNDERSTANDING THE
BASICS
The in which individual letters are positioned and placed are just as important as the actual style of the text itself. The
placement needs to be visually pleasing to achieve a professional and effective design. This is why considering these
basics is important when designing typefaces or creating a logo, webpage, etc.
Below is the explanations to all these words featured in the picture. They must all be considered when creating a
typeface.
•The Type Size, also called the Cap Height, is the overall height of capital letters in the formation of words.
•The Ascender is the upward tail on letters like h, l, t, b, d, and k.
•The Descender is the downward tail for letters like g, q, and y.
•The Counter is the white space located inside letters like o and p.
•The X Height is the height of the letter, and does not include ascenders or descenders.
•Baselines are the boundary that the lowest part of the letter rests on. Take a look at the y, p, g, p and y letters in the
illustration above. The solid line they are resting on is the baseline.

7. KERNING
What is Kerning?
Kerning (less commonly mortising) is the process of
adjusting the spacing between characters in a
proportional font, usually to achieve a visually
pleasing result. Kerning adjusts the space between
individual letter forms, while tracking (letter-spacing)
adjusts spacing uniformly over a range of characters. In
a well-kerned font, the two-dimensional blank spaces
between each pair of characters all have a visually
similar area.
Just the same as the ascender, decender, X height and
Type size, the Kerning of typography needs to be
considered. It is basically the amount of space there is
between each individual letter. As you can see below,
the version of type where kerning is applied looks much
more pleasing and orderly than without kerning. The
top version looks almost unfinished and wrong.

8. FAMOUS EXAMPLES
MILTON GLASER
JAMIE REID
Milton Glaser is the well known graphic
designer who created the “I heart NY”
design. He has created a few typefaces
as well, the image to the left being one
example. I’m not too keen on the font, I
think it feels quite child-like and video
game styled. Although it does work in a
lot of his designs.
Jamie Reid is an English artist and anarchist with connections
to the Situationists. His work, featuring letters cut from
newspaper headlines in the style of a ransom note, came close
to defining the image of punk rock, particularly in the UK. His
best known works include the Sex Pistols album Never Mind
the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols and the singles "Anarchy in
the UK", "God Save The Queen" (based on a Cecil Beaton
photograph of Queen Elizabeth II, with an added safety pin
through her nose and swastikas in her eyes, described by Sean
O'Hagan of The Observer as "the single most iconic image of
the punk era"), "Pretty Vacant" and "Holidays in the Sun".

9. NEVILLE BRODY
Neville Brody is one of my favourite designers and typographers, I really love
how he almost breaks the rules of typography and balance in designs, but it
works.
“Neville Brody is a London born designer who studied design in Britain during
the 1970s. He spent three years studying at the London College of Printing
where his work, which was quite experimental in nature, was met with quite
unfavourable criticism because the school generally taught traditional printing
methods. He gained a fair amount of attention as an art director for The Face
magazine, where he worked from 1980 to 1993. The magazine was very
popular in the 1980s, it was called a "fashion bible" and set many of the
trends of design which enjoyed success during the same time period.”
The image on the right is mainly
asymmetrical, yet it has some
symmetry in it, such as the divide
between the middle and the balance
between the letter “U”.

10. MODERN EXAMPLES
(SANS SERIF) Here are some examples of some really good
uses of modern typography I found on the internet. This shows
just how much typography has developed over the years and
how it is used within graphic design and publishing.
The design to the left is very asymmetrical, and the text is all
over the place in some areas. But there's something very
effective and pleasing about the design and the way the letters
are placed. The balance with the words and lettering are very
different, but in my opinion create a very modern and fresh
design.
(SERIF) To the right is
another very cleaver use
of typography, this has
been done mainly to
create emotion and
connection with the
advert, in this case you
are connecting to the
child who “copies” the
parent through the use of
their handwriting. This is
really clever, I think if an
advert can spark the
emotion they need to,
they have done their job.

11. MODERN EXAMPLES
I really like the example above. They have used the woman's
hair for the typography, and are basically saying “women don’t
want thin hair” but in a very cleaver and pleasing way. They
have used very curly, fancy type to reflect the ladies curly,
thick hair.
The design to the right is very symmetrical, it’s neat and in
order. This image is talking about war, peace and equality, and
have been very cleaver in the design as everything is even
and equal in dimensions, which is done to reflect how
everyone should be equal.

12. TO SUM UP…
To summarise, typography is an incredibly powerful and effective way of communicating an emotion and
feeling to an audience. It can create confusion, order, feeling of happiness, sadness, connection and
professionalism. Everything must be considered when using typography, from kerning to symmetry. When
done right, it is a very effective tool and will help in sales, branding and identity. But when done wrong, it
can be disastrous as it could convey the wrong feeling or emotion, or make a company look
unprofessional and scruffy!