Typography, simply defined, is every factor that makes up the appearance of text, including the length of text, size, font, colour, scale, pairing, and countless more features. Effective typography will draw in the audience’s attention, making more use of your words than simply what they say – sending a secondary message through the visual aspect, deliberately chosen for a specific reaction.
Every graphic designer knows the value and impact of good typography, but it can be tricky and time-consuming to work with.
Luckily, there are plenty of typography tools available to aid you in this process, whether you have limited experience in the area of typography, or simply want to make the process as smooth and stress-free as possible.
Google Fonts
Google Fonts the first of many fantastic resources for graphic designers to find hundreds of free fonts to use. You can dig through the Google Fonts directory, offering over 800 different fonts that you can access absolutely free of charge.
FontFace Ninja
One of the most invaluable tools for graphic designers that are currently available is the FontFace Ninja Google Chrome browser extension. If you’ve ever been browsing a website, seen a font you love, and wanted to know what it is, FontFace Ninja can tell you in an instant. Michael Roberts, a journalist at Draftbeyond.com and Researchpapersuk.com, points out that “just by hovering over the text, FontFace Ninja can identify the font family, size, weight, and more – plus you can even bookmark each and every font you come across on any website”. What’s more, it’s completely free!
Archetype
Archetype is a great typography tool for designers to use, where you can select the perfect font pairings and style your typography to suit your design. Archetype offers a range of functions, including allowing designers to adjust the font sizes and spacing to match your design requirements. You can even export your personal typography designs as either a sketch file or as CSS.
Font Joy
Font Joy specializes in perfectly matching different fonts for optimum font pairings, by utilizing machine learning technology to do all the work for you. Font Joy’s slogan is ‘Font pairing made simple’ – you can easily generate perfect font pairings in endless combinations of contrasting yet complementary typefaces for headlines and body text alike. Whatever your level of expertise, Font Joy offers a simple and streamlined service to help you find the perfect fonts for your design needs.
Wordmark.it
Wordmark.it is another Google Chrome extension designed to help designers find the right font for the occasion – Wordmark.it will present users with a display of the text you choose in each font available from your computer, whether this is a heading, a paragraph of body text, or a single character. This simple user interface allows designers to preview and quickly choose the appropriate font for their design needs, as well as allowing users to categorize their fonts and filter them.
Type Scale
Type Scale is a simple service, allowing users to easily calculate font scale. Simply enter the base-font size for your body text and then select from the given options of font values for surrounding text, such as headings and smaller bodies of text. This lets designers find the perfect scale for different fonts on the same page for optimum designs.
Typewolf
Typewolf strives to give designers a preview of how real type will perform on their website or other design projects, without having to experiment fully with each font through trial and error to find the right ones. Typewolf is a fantastic resource for graphic designers to get a really good idea of how their typefaces will work in practice, not just in theory. They also offer font recommendations, inspirational websites with excellent fonts, and more.
By making simple yet hugely impactful changes to your text content, designers can optimize readability, visual attraction, usability, and accessibility. As Gloria Sheen, a design blogger at Writinity.com and Lastminutewriting.com, says, “Never underestimate the impact of well-designed typography – it can make all the difference on your next big design project.”
Written by Ashley Halsey
Ashley Halsey is a professional writer at Luckyassignments.com and Gumessays.com who has been involved in many projects throughout the country. Mother of two children, she enjoys travelling, reading and attending business training courses.
