Typography is an art where the importance is often underestimated.
Words surround people in their everyday lives, almost every minute of their day. Do you not want to put the best version of those words out there? To stand out? To get peoples' attention? Typography helps you do that.
Let's look at some courses, both video and text-based ones, that can help you improve your typography.
What Is Typography and Does It Matter?
Typography is the art of the written word.
It's the way the letters work together, their design, where they're placed relative to each other, font, and size. It's the appearance of the text and how it's structured for others to perceive it.
Typography has impacted a lot of what you see. It brings text to life, drawing your eyes to certain words and provoking a response. They can, for example, trigger an emotion or tell a story.
1. Beginning Graphic Design - Typography
The Beginning Graphic Design course caters to people who are just dipping their toes into the world of design and have no idea what typography is but are eager to learn.
This course is free and divided into six sections:
- Typography
- Color
- Layout and Composition
- Images
- Fundamentals of Design
- Branding and Identity
The typography section takes you less than ten minutes to go through, but you'll leave understanding what it is and why it matters. There's a written course you can go through online, along with a YouTube video version; you can choose whichever you feel is more easily digestible.
The course helps you get a clear understanding of serifs and sans serifs, different fonts and their "baggage", line length, and, generally, how to marry everything on the page so that it looks cohesive and tells a story.
Naturally, you'll also learn about the importance of design, and knowing beforehand what you want your brand to say about you. By having an idea about that, you can use typography to convey your image more accurately.
Once you get an understanding of the art of typography, you can continue learning about the other integral parts of design covered in the course.
2. The 33 Laws of Typography
This course is available on LinkedIn Learning and caters to beginners.
It takes about three hours to finish, and you leave with a certificate of completion in the end. The LinkedIn Learning platform offers a free one-month trial, so if you're interested in the course, it's worth giving a try.
The 33 Laws of Typography is divided into five main sections:
- Documents
- Large Bodies of Text
- Small Blocks of Text
- Punctuation
- Typefaces
The course also has introduction and conclusion sections.
The 33 Laws of Typography is full of advice and explanations about the importance of typography, along with the difference it can make in your design if done right.
3. Introduction to Typography by the California Institute of the Arts
You can find this course on the Coursera platform. It takes about nine hours to complete, and it's for beginners who are just starting to learn about and use typography.
The course helps you learn about graphic design and how to work with Adobe Illustrator and Adobe InDesign to achieve your vision. Since the course's goal isn't to teach you how to use these two programs, it's a good idea to come into this with at least a basic understanding of them.
The Introduction to Typography course teaches you about hierarchy and spatial organization, choosing the best type and convention, and how to best express your ideas through typography.If you want to learn how to use the art to manipulate words and create the graphic design that will work best for you, give it a look.
4. Introduction to Typography: Design fundamentals for beginners
The course is available on Skillshare, which is a paid platform. However, it offers a 30-day free trial you can sign up for, as well as a 14-day free premium membership trial. During those 14 days, you can choose to enjoy as many Skillshare classes as you want.
This Introduction to Typography course takes a little over an hour to complete and, as the name suggests, caters to beginners.It's divided into 20 lessons with durations that make them bite-sized and super easy to consume.
You learn about what typography is and the right terms to use, its importance in the world of design, typographic principles that you can apply to both digital and print media, and how to make the best choices when it comes to typography.
You will also find out about various tricks, how to use typography effectively, and how to apply your newly-learned skills to graphic design—including web and user interface (UI) design.
5. An Introduction to Web Fonts & Modern Web Typography
This course is available on Skillshare, and is included in the 14-day premium membership trial we mentioned in the previous secton.
An Introduction to Web Fonts & Modern Web Typography is divided into five lessons and lasts for around an hour. It's geared more toward intermediate learners, so remember to keep that in mind. During your free Skillshare trial, you could combine this with Introduction to Typography: Design fundamentals for beginners.
It also caters to beginner front-end web designers who are either currently learning how to work HTML(5) and CSS(3), or at least plan to, in the near future. And, it's aimed at helping these people develop their typographical skills.
The course helps you learn about fonts, style, line spacing, contrast, the importance of readability, and cross-device scalability, among other topics. It also distinguishes between choosing a pretty font and using typography for your design.
Typography Matters: These Courses Will Help You Learn About It
Arguably, typography is the most important part of a design. It can truly make your masterpiece stand out and capture the attention of your audience, and it's easy to tell when it's lacking.
Having read this article, you now have five resources to learn this skill without paying a cent. So, why not give them a try and see which one works best for you?