Typography is the art of arranging printed text in a way that makes it more appealing and legible. The central idea behind elements of typography is good communication. There are eight vital elements of typography, which are Typeface, Hierarchy, Contrast, Consistency, Alignment, Whitespace, and Color.
Typeface:
It is the design or style of the forms of letters. Nowadays, it is used interchangeably with Font, but these are two different things. For example, T is written in the Times New Roman typeface, whereas the bolding of it is the font. There are three basic typefaces: serif, sans-serif, and decorative. Serifs are the embellished extended ends of a letter. Sans means without in French, meaning sans-serif typeface has no embellished ends in the design of the letterforms. The Decorative typeface is creative and elaborated.
Hierarchy:
It helps in organizing the ideas in a way that retains their meaning. For example, the heading of any text should be at the top, and then comes the subheading, and then the body of the text. This is a hierarchy.
Contrast:
It is a way of making any text interesting by emphasizing. For example, by bolding or italicizing a word, you bring the viewer's attention to that word and communicate its importance. Choose various typefaces, colors, sizes, and styles to bring contrast to your type.
Consistency:
It is one of the key principles of typography. You can achieve consistency by deciding on a hierarchy of styles and using it everywhere in your text. For example, decide the size, font, style for your headings, subheadings, and body, and keep it consistent throughout your text.
Alignment:
It is the 'line' towards which the text orients. Every element of your design should align with the other elements to create consistency by creating equal sizes and distances between objects. It applies to the whole body of text, just a word, or an image.
Whitespace:
It is the empty space around the text or objects. It is responsible for creating an appealing visual experience and bringing focus to the text. Texts with less whitespace tend to look cluttered and become hard to read.
Color:
An important part of any text, color helps set the tone of your text. It has three elements:
Hue: The shade of a color
Saturation: The brilliance of a color
Value: The lightness and darkness of a color
There should be a contrast between these elements to make your text is more readable. To check if your text has enough contrast of elements of color, put your design through a grayscale. If you can't read, you should tweak the values of the elements and try again.
Typography has become an increasingly important part of today's digital world. It can make or break your design. Having proper sense and knowledge about typography can help you make improved designs, thus helping you communicate your ideas better.