monaux:

Typography Tips:

Lately I’ve had a few people ask me what fonts I use. I don’t use any fonts - I draw all my typography from scratch, and I encourage you to do the same! Typography is something that is frequently ignored or overlooked, but it is one of the most essential elements of design. I hate seeing beautiful illustrations ruined by lazy computer type.

I do occasionally base my type on various existing typefaces (usually from Victorian posters & advertisements), but I always modify the characters and invent new ones.

Here’s my process for creating logo/header typography: I start by ruling myself some guides so the characters have a uniform height. Then, I work out how wide each character should be. This is generally one width with exceptions for wide characters such as Ms and Ws, and narrow characters like Is.

I then start drawing the letterforms and I always try to find ways to make them interact with one another. One trick to bind a block of type together is to make the letterforms flow and link with themselves. Crossbars (like in capital As and Hs) are good to experiment with, as are curly bits like in Gs, Cs, Js and Rs. After I’m happy with how everything is working, I ink it.

If you’re serious about learning typography, my favourite book on the subject is called “Scripts: Elegant Lettering from Design’s Golden Age”. It’s a collection of hundreds of excellent examples of typography that no letterer should be without. It also pays to know about the basic principles of typography - how different typefaces handle different letters, which parts should be thickened, when you should include serifs and what style they should be, how kerning and leading affect how a piece of type looks, and so on. It could be helpful to take a course on it (I studied it at university), but I’m pretty sure you can learn everything you need to know simply by being observant.