Why Should You Care About Typography?

If you think typography is simply about personal whim, you just haven't been looking at it the right way.

I have a confession to make. There was a time, many years ago, where I thought that typography was fashion by another name. I didn't really appreciate how different typefaces function, and how the discipline evolved over time, under pressure from aesthetics and technology. And it makes me particularly red-faced to remember that I once flaunted that ignorance, going so far as to tell a noted creative director that bit about type as fashion. If only I'd known! If only I'd had this infographic!

Created by someone who only calls themselves Noodlor, it does a pretty superb job laying out the basics of typography, such as the common types of faces, ranging from regular to condensed, and the anatomy of letterforms. There's also the very keen nugget of wisdom that 95% of graphic design is actually typography. But where it gets really good is in the "What It's Saying" section — which should serve as a slap in the face to anyone who thinks like I once did:

From there, we get into more subtle territory: The basic principles of layout, which begins with the basics of direction, contrast, and rhythm:

"Don't try to be original, just try to be good" — Spoken, originally, by a master of typographic clarity, Paul Rand. And one to remember, always.

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{by Cliff Kuang, the editor of Co.Design, and in the past has written regularly for WIRED, Popular Science, and GOOD.}