Typography, the art and method of designing type, is the foundation of graphic design, and it brings together our creations and ideas as no other elements can.
It's more than just making sure people can read your design; it's about the layout, sizing, the color palette, the grid, the kerning, and, of course, the font choice. There's even more to it than I have room to write about, but if you want to learn an entirely new skillset or wish to hone in on your typography talents, below, you'll find five digital courses that will help you do just that.
There's plenty of insight to be gained from these classes, whether you're just a curious mind interested in design or a seasoned pro with years and years of experience. The courses linked below include teachings from the foundational introduction of typography to lessons about type in motion. Better still, you can get instruction from some of today's best and brightest in design, including the one and only Aaron Draplin and Daniel Barba López, who's worked for both VANS and Sony Music brands.
Here's five typography course you should enroll in right this second. Now go and design a font we can all argue about on Instagram and Twitter.
Customizing Type with Draplin: Creating Wordmarks That Work
Aaron Draplin, known for his work Coal Headwear, the Union Binding Company, Snowboard Magazine, Field Notes memo books, Ride Snowboards, Forum Snowboards, Grenade Gloves, and countless others, teaches this class that focuses on techniques for customizing type. The lessons cover everything from the customization of letterforms to sketching type from scratch.
Introduction to Typography: California Institute of the Arts
This introductory level course offered by the California Institute of the Arts and taught by Anther Kiley focuses on the pragmatic concerns in selecting, combining, and designing type. The class is a series of lectures that get paired with peer-assessed assignments. The end goal is to create a full-scale typographic poster.
TypeEd is an educational program to help designers better their typography skills both quickly and efficiently. They created this specific class for educating designers on the basics of characters, increasing the effectiveness of final designs. You'll learn lessons about the importance of horizontal and vertical rhythm, the science behind the way humans read characters and words, as well as how the details of certain letterforms may alter your final font choice.
Typography Customization for Logo Design
Here's a class with over 3,000 students, and 100% of them have positive reviews. Good luck finding anything that everyone can agree on aside from Baby Yoda. Daniel Barba López of Monotype Studio created the course, and he specializes in corporate identity design. You'll learn how to create a unique logo from sketching to a final vector version in this course.
Just as the name states, this is a lesson about all things in motion. Ina Saltz is a writer, art director, professor at City College of New York and the instructor of this course. She will explain how particular typographical effects can enhance or distract from an overall message and explain why and how to make specific aesthetic decisions in your designs.