typography is always the hardest part of design for me. I always do everything else well pretty fast, but typography is hell to me. I change dozen of Google Fonts before I even think I have something that could ‘maybe’ pass, and still I’m always unsure, and I don’t know if kerning is ok, if line-height could be few pixels bigger etc…
So how do I practice my eye for understanding typography better. How do I learn some practical principles. How do you guys decide fonts, font sizes, line heights and everything else in practical setup?
You basically took the words right out of my mouth. I’ve never been able to completely get a grip of typography. I can appreciate what good typography looks like, but getting there myself is a nightmare. Pairing fonts together is one of the hardest parts.
It’s easy to get confused when you change dozens of fonts. To understand typography / pairing / hierarchy first of all choose 2-3 fonts (depends on your design / concept) and pretend you don’t have any other fonts available.Try to make that fonts looks nice accordingly to the hierarchy rules and your concept.
Here some easy to pair fonts combinations:
Oswald + Ubuntu
Steelfish _ Source Sans Pro
Ubuntu Titling + Open Sans
Abraham Lincoln + Oswald
Blanch + Intro Free font + Oswald
Code + Myriad Pro
BP Diet + Oswald
Muncie + Steelfish
Trajan Pro + Oswald
As you see I like Oswald allot :).
Of course you can use many other fonts but it’s a helpful exercise working with just few fonts. This exercise force you to concentrate on hierarchy and composition.
From my experience I can tell you, any font can be pair any font in the right context.
I have some flyers done but with the typo part not finished yet. I will give a try to your font combinations to see how they go.
Oh, and oswald font looks awesome I don’t know how i have missed it until now.
Typography was also a nightmare for me too. I can’t even count how many rejections i had in the past because of that! I hate to admit but it turned out that the reviewer was right!
I had enough, so a month ago i spent days trying to understand and learn what makes a good typography!
So here are my tips:
Google fonts:
If you hover over the typeface (yes, there is a difference between a font and typeface! :-D) you will see an icon named “pop out”. Click on that and choose the third tab (Pairings). Voilá! Now you have more than 600 typefaces and you have at least 5 suggestions for pairing. In 99.9 % of the time it does the trick.
Lynda
I found this 3 video tutorials from Ina Saltz on lynda.com and it really changed my whole life! It’s not that long, ca. 4 hours but it’s worth every minute! It’s amazing how she explains everything!
And keep in mind, that guides and grids are your best friends when it comes to alignment!
I’m not saying that i became a professional after this but it really helped me a LOT!
