Typography

Much to my surprise, I'm finding that learning Photoshop hasn't just been about picking up some cool technical skills, but also about discovering this whole new world of graphic design, a world that produces all the visual media I consume all day everyday but which I've taken entirely for granted.

Today's latest discovery: typography.

typography |tīˈpägrəfē|
noun
the art or process of setting and arranging types and printing from them.

Typography has two parts to it. On one hand, it's about the design and creation of new fonts. This is, perhaps, the world's most underappreciated art form. I never thought of type design myself until I got into Photoshop and looked up the blog I Love Typography, where you see how the process of type creation involves all the trappings of traditional artwork, including sketches, concept drawings, and numerous edits. Typography is also perhaps the world's most useful art, since it's what drives all the blogs, advertisements, flyers, and other visual media that we use. It's nice then that typography has gotten a recent boost from the MacArthur Foundation, which recently awarded a grant to type designer Matthew Carter, known for fonts like Georgia (this one) and Verdana (this one).

The second side of typography is making pictures out of words. I've really taken a liking to it. Here are some of my favorite examples, collected from around the Internet:

You can find a lot more examples of stunning typographic artwork here. Here's my own attempt at the art form:

I based the design on what I learned in this tutorial.