One thing that you should aware of when you are learning Graphic Design by yourself/independently is typography.

Typography is the art and techniques of type design, modifying type glyphs, and arranging type. Type glyphs (characters) are created and modified using a variety of illustration techniques. The arrangement of type is the selection of typefaces, point size, line length, leading (line spacing) and letter spacing.

Typography technique is a must for graphic designers. Not only graphic designers, but art directors, typesetters, and compositors as well needs to learn more from this. It is a technique that is already being developed since 1600BC in Greek and followed by China. You should already know that without typography, you won’t have History class anymore.

Since there is a technique to typography, then it can be trained. Training an abstract skill like this requires further research and browsing thousands of font. Now, I know why Graphic Design students hate this.

Since I just learn this thing, I can’t say much without going on with references. So, let’s start browsing on some recommended sites. Hmm… what first? What about some font banks?

Font Banks (Library)

• ACME Fonts
• Adobe Type Library
• Dutch Type Library
• Emigre
• FontFarm
• FontFont
• Fountain
• Hoefler&Frere-Jones
• House Industries
• Identifont
• ITC Fonts
• Jeremy Tankard Typography
• Letterror
• Lineto
• Linotype
• Lucas Fonts
• Monotype
• MyFonts
• Ourtype
• Process Type Foundry
• Storm Type Foundry
• T.26
• The Enschedé Font Foundry
• The Font Bureau
• The Foundry
• Type Trust
• Typotheque
• Underware
• Veer Type
• Village
• Volcano Type
• Dafont (Recommended by Rokryan)
• Creamundo (Updated Oct 25, 2007)

Recommended Font Blogs

• I Love Typography (yeah… a site which is an opposite of me)
• Type for You (just for you, don’t bring anyone else)
• Type Now: Free themed fonts, you’ll find a lot of movie, music, or brand fonts. Mostly available for WINDOWS OS, sorry for MAC users. (Updated Nov 14, 2007)

As for any beginner like me, this is my tips in learning typography:

• Learn terminologies in typography
• Learn how font was made (including search for font builder software)
• Learn the types of font and where to use it
• Browse the pages or biography of famous typographers, learn their tips
• Keep intact with any typography updates by reading magazines, books and blogs
• Try to make your own font after all this tips are applied (well, you can start sketching whenever you want)

Now you can apply it to your work. See if there any differences.

Hmm… I wonder whether I will improve from this.

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