Thanks to the Internet, there has never been a better time to learn typography. There is a wealth of top-notch resources to cultivate the beginner and nourish the expert font designer. Here are some of our favorites.
More typography related posts we previously published:
- 70 Wonderful 3D Typography That Truely Inspires
- 28 Excellent Examples Of Typography Portraits
- 20 Best WordPress Typography Plugins To Enhance Readability
- Type as a Graphic Image: A Sometimes Ignored Art Tool
Start Here (And Stop Back Frequently)
When you’re just getting your feet wet in the sea of type, these sites will act as your water wings:
Myfonts
One of the biggest typeface sites on the Internet, Myfonts curates an unparalleled catalog of well-organized fonts. New font designers will also love MyFonts’ email newsletter, including the stellar Creative Characters interview with talented font designers.
Counterspace
This elegant site provides a classical foundation in typeface, from letter anatomy to type history.
Thinking with Type
The web companion to Ellen Lupton’s seminal book on typography as a design feature, this website has a high density of useful information about the history, present, and future of type. Thinking with Type is a must-see for the self-educated scholar of typography.
Making Your First Fonts
The day you decide to try your hand at font design is an exciting turning point in your foray into typography. To make your fonts shine, you’ll want a more technical primer to guide you. Use these two references to help you build fonts that work.
Typeworkshop.com
The site at-large is a fascinating look at creative type design, but the basics section is an indispensable crash course into some of the geometric decisions you’ll make as you craft a typeface.
Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web
This site is a web companion to the book Elements of Typographic Style. Appropriately enough, it contains supplemental information specifically intended for typefaces optimized for web use.
More Great Typography Sites
I Love Typography
This excellent site has its finger on the pulse of the type community. In addition to useful discussions of type and font faces, I Love Typography reports on type culture and tools. For some friendly competition, try their type identification game!
Typographica
To see fonts through the experts’ eyes, try Typographica. The educational reviews will train you to look critically at your own work.
Cavendish Gallery of Print and Typography
To move forward, sometimes it helps to look backward. The Cavendish Gallery is an online museum of historical typefaces. It’s also an excellent place to test your own burgeoning ability to critique typefaces. What makes old typefaces appropriate for their own time? What combination of practicality and public opinion caused the type of yore to evolve into the fonts of today?
Typophile
Typophile is possibly the Internet’s greatest hub of font enthusiasts. Go there to sit at the knees of the greats, get help with your own work, watch expert font identification and critique, and shoot the breeze with others about your shared love of type.
Understanding Terminology and History
If you want to go in-depth and do some homework, bookmark and go through these articles talking about the history and background of typography:
- History of Typography at ILoveTypography.com:
- part 1: Humanist or Venetian Style Types
- part 2: Old Style or Garalde types
- part 3: Transitional Type
- part 4: Modern (Didone)
- Typography Terminology (pdf): The Huge cheat sheet of typo terms for you to print out and read when offline.
- Type-Culture Academic Resource: Educational resources, including documentary videos about typography.
typography Videos – Be inspired!
Want to see typography in action? Get inspired with these 5 killer examples in motion!
Pulp Fiction Typography
Wonderful typographic interpretation of a very well know scene from the film Pulp Fiction, probably NSFW.
A Lesson on Typography
Typography history visualized and put in motion – nice!
Minimalism – Kinetic Typography Poem
Minimalism explained with help of kinetic typography:
How to Impress a Woman
Requiem for a Dream
The "You’re on uppers" scene in REQUIEM FOR A DREAM portrayed using nothing but kinetic typography.
