How Your Words Affect Your Picture
Understanding and developing your skills in typography.
Hello all,
According to GCF Global, typography is "the style or appearance of text." This is a pretty simple concept, but it is important to note and understand how critical it is to design. Every element of a design contributes to the overall message, even the lettering. It's important to look at how language, word choice, font, size and color can best work for your design. Nothing kills a great design like bad typography.
Because there is no quick solution to finding what style works for you, it is important to familiarize yourself with the art. One great way to do this is to pimple start paying attention. Look around you. What words are there? Look at the font, size and color. Is it contributing to your understanding of the message? Would you do something different?
Here are some great online games to play to develop your skills and confidence with typography!
The goal of this game is to identify which letters appear in sans serif fonts. Before playing this game, I didn't realize how many fonts can appear so similar when scrolling through them on Microsoft. This helped me look closer at the detail in fonts and develop a better understanding of the difference between them. Just note, this game can only be played on an iPhone or iPad.
This game is phenomenal for developing a better of the message and feelings associated with certain fonts. Some fonts look super formal and some look fun and whimsical. Knowing which to use in different situations is key. This games allows you to create a story for certain fonts and think about what their 'personality' is. It helped me focus on what I really think about certain fonts and what meaning they convey to me. Here is a screen grab from the game to give you a sneak peak.
One of my biggest issues when deciding on a font was knowing the one I needed. I knew how I wanted it to look, but I didn't know which one would give me the desired effect. Also, sometimes I would see an interesting font on a poster or advertisement and want to recreate it, but I didn't know how to find it. This game helped me so much in being able to identify the names of fonts. It shows you a letter in a certain font and allows you to pick the name of the font you think it belongs to. It was a guessing game for me at first, but as I got better it became addicting!
This is by far one of my favorite typography games! The screen will show you some letters in a certain font and you must move the individual letters around to create (what you think) is the perfect space between them. This activity is called kerning. Once you feel your spacing is perfect, you click done and the website will compare your answer with a professional typographer's. Here is a screen grab from a game, when I finally got it right (or close enough)!
