The word “typography” has Greek roots meaning “Impression Writing”. Did you know that?
Typography is an art of arranging written text into a more readable, legible and more appealing format. It was not until the digital age came, that Typography was an occupation. But today with so many advanced tools and techniques a lot of people from different sectors get the chance to try hands at typography.
It is only today that typography finds its usage in many fields. It could be a graphic designer, a tattoo artist, a clerk, an art director, a manga artist or a funny comic book artist.
Today people understand how important the visuals are. And they are absolutely right in having that expectation. The consumer today is very hard to impress, for good reasons and bad. If the consumer is not impressed by the visuals of what you are selling there are high chances of a failed deal.
As you would already know, “Content is King”. That is the reason so many web designers are taking the approach of keeping their text-based content first. Further encouraging them to have a very attractive typographic system to keep the reader glued to their content.
The smartest thing for web designers is to understand the ins and outs of typography and making the best of use of all new tools available in the market.
This example might help; you are a customer at a clothing store who went there with the intention to buy a scarf. You tend to choose a scarf that looks beautiful, attractive and appealing to your eyes. Instead of a scarf that is of very good quality but looks very dull.
What I am trying to convey here is, excellent content goes to the drains if the reader doesn’t see it. And for the reader to see it and stick to it, the content needs to look appealing to the eyes. Not keeping an eye on the typography system is one grave mistake a web designer cannot afford to commit.
So if you are someone who is serious about upping their Typography game, this is the right article for you.
Below are listed 15 tools to up your typography game to impressive levels:
Type Nugget
This is an online typesetting tool that allows its users to have a good control over a very strong base for wonderful web type. And all this happens through a very well-functioning user interface. It generates sound, compatible, maintainable and accessible CSS ready that can be used directly on your website.
Fontspiration
FontStruct
It is a free font-building tool funded by FontShop. This tool enables you to create fonts created out of geometrical shapes quickly and easily. You have the choice here to keep your creations private.
UnderlineJS
This tool is a javascript library that makes the text underline better. It empowers you with utility functions for all the regularly used programming jobs.
Type chart
FFFFALLBACK
I know the Fs, huh! In simpler terms, this is a tool that is designed to help its user to bulletproof their web typography. This tool was developed to allow the users to use to find their ideal fallback fonts to use in their designs.
This tool helps users to compare the fallback fonts and see how they appear on a screen. It enables the user to have a font stack that can gradually degrade properly.
TypePlate
It is one of the most well-designed starter kits for someone new in the typography industry. Typeplate comes with a handful of starter level typographic styles like scaling, color, indenting, hyphenation etc.
TypeIt
This tool comes as a savior to the user who needs to type in a language foreign or new to him. There can be times when the typing might also require one to include the accents too. So basically this tool helps the user by letting them not ignore those characters or by not having them to buy from a third party software.
All this tool requires you to do is type in a text box. And then the tool will add characters and accents without using any additional keywords.
Typedia
This is a community to differentiate typefaces and gives an idea about all things related to Typography. Anyone is allowed to join, add and edit pages for the people interested in the type.
Typedia is a good resource for people to be aware of good typefaces and figure out the new ones.
Tinytype
This is one unique tool which allows typography for mobile users. As the website says it is actually an incompatibility table. This tool allows the user to know about the state of the default systems font across a variety of mobile platforms. It can be used to find alternatives with a certain font when the page gets heavy.
Gridlover
This tool helps the user to make typographical systems with modular scale and vertical rhythms. This tool allows the user to experiment with the font size, line height, and scale factor sliders according to his desire.
Just My Type
It is a good collection of font pairings that a user could use according to preferences.
FontStruct
This is a font building too that is funded by FontShop. Users can conveniently create a spectrum of fonts by using geometrical shapes. It allows the user to download the fonts and use them in applications of their choice.
PosterMaker
This one is another free online flyer and poster maker. It gives the users a wide variety of badges, borders, backgrounds, frames etc. These can be used to make beautiful flyers, memes, typography designs easily.
Tiff
This is a unique tool that allows the user to check 2 different fonts. It shows the visual differences between the fonts the user selects.
A web designer should be a master of Typography as the website design is 90 percent text content. Use these tools to automate your design workflow and help you establish good visual hierarchy throughout the design.
Bella Williams: As an academic researcher & private tutor, Bella guides the new age professionals and students with their career. A graduate of Monash University, Bella organizes free coaching workshops for Essay Writer and promotes free sharing of knowledge. She is also a consulting editor at Assignment Expert.