Typophile

How to learn typography?

Pierluigi

Hi everyone,

I am a student of graphic design who is new to typography and would like to develop my knowledge in this area , as it's a very important aspect of my job. I purchased some recomended books on typography (Fonts , tamye riggs. Typeography essentials. Helvetica, homage to a typeface), but the only thing I can do is look at them and read the rules , but I don't feel like I'm learning alot by doing that , at least when I start a new project on photoshop. I recently started to draw by hand using a pencil famous and cool logos , mainly only-lettered logos , and I feel like it's deepening my visual knowledge on the topic since I improved a bit my "type vision".

Is there a better method wich you reccomend/suggest to improve my typography skills?

Thank you for the attention,
Pierluigi Giglio

babs

Hi, fontshop just launched an educational page.They have some pdf files avaible for download, http://www.fontshop.com/education/
The book Stop stealing sheep and find out how type works was a great starting point for me.

Steven Acres

http://www.amazon.com/Texts-Type-Critical-Writings-Typography/dp/1581150822

Andreas Stötzner

See if you can manage to work for some time in a handlettering workshop. Get reproductions from penmen of the Renaissance era and exercise formal writing with a broad nib pen.
Those two things I found most valuable.

Pierluigi

thank you very much , I will definetly try your suggestions out!

Nick Shinn

Try creating a digital facsimile of an old letterpress document.
Anything prior to the 1960s.
That will require a lot of discretionary "manual" adjustments, thereby training you in the nuances of typographic setting, and also give you some perspective on the relationship between different technological eras, which is a driving force in typography.

Robert Trogman

On my web site I show different categories of type and where they are traditionally used
http://www.dr-type.net

Pierluigi

thanks very much to everyone , it helped me very much!

p.s.: thanks robert trogman , the book is very nice , just printed

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