Last Updated on December 19, 2022
Typography as been one of the most difficult disciplines to get right for years for many designers. The art of typography relies on having a good eye for text and how to make it both creative, and readable. Loosely defined as the ‘art and technique of arranging type’, for a long time, graphic designers have looked to strike the balance between unique, and illegible.
If done right, typography is a highly effective way of promoting a business or a design, but if done wrong, then it can turn out to be a disaster that can not be read! Which side of the spectrum that falls on depends on you!
This article looks to take the pressure off of typographers and designers out there and lighten the mood, looking to instead, offer a range of relatable and sometimes funny quotes that can act as a lesson for all designers out there, regardless of how long you have been in the profession for.
Why do we care about Typography?
Typography is so much more than just choosing beautiful fonts: it’s a vital component of user interface design. Good typography will establish a strong visual hierarchy, provide a graphic balance to the website, and set the product’s overall tone. Typography should guide and inform your users, optimize readability and accessibility, and ensure an excellent user experience.
Not only that, but it can help to build brand recognition (Think Coca Cola and McDonald’s), and it can help to keep your readers attention peaked too. There are also many different elements to typography that show that there are so many moving parts that work together, like fonts, typefaces, position, color, and gradient. Not only is it important, but it takes skill and a keen eye too.
With that in mind, let’s dive into the quotes:
1. “Geometry can produce legible letters, but art alone makes them beautiful. Art begins where geometry ends, and imparts to letters a character transcending mere measurement.”
― Paul Standard.
2. “Nothing made by a human can avoid the personal experience, and nothing made for a human should avoid personal expression.”
― Hrant Papazian.
3. “My world is black and white. I Like straight lines and curves, I am happy in that world.”
― Bruno Maag.
4. “The beauty of type lies in its utility; prettiness without readability serves neither author nor reader.”
― James Felici.
5. “Form and function together create typographic excellence.”
― R. Roger Remington.
6. “Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form.”
― Robert Bringhurst, ‘The Elements Of Typographic Style’.
7. “A life rich in reading is the only path to thinking and creating.”
― Mandy Brown.
8. “It is almost impossible to look and read at the same time: they are different actions.”
― Gerard Unger.
9. “Of all the achievements of the human mind, the birth of the alphabet is the most momentous.”
― Frederic Goudy.
10. “Typography is a hidden tool of manipulation within society.”
― Neville Brody.
11. “Typography is to literature as musical performance is to composition: an essential act of interpretation, full of endless opportunities for insight or obtuseness.”
― Robert Bringhurst, ‘The Elements Of Typographic Style’.
12. “Type is what meaning looks like.”
― Max Phillips.
13. “Good typography can help your reader devote less attention to the mechanics of reading and more attention to your message.”
— Matthew Butterick.
14. “The temptation to use typographic trickery can be overwhelming, but the careful typographer must determine what is truly required to best communicate the specific and coherent ideas of the author or artist.”
― Michael Russem.
15. “Graphology is more mystical, so to say; its main aim is to define one’s character through one’s handwriting. Handwriting studies are aimed at matching the existing handwriting samples to establish the authorship.”
― MVK Contemporary Museum Of Calligraphy.
16. “Fault is multiple, it is life, it reflects the personality of the artist and his character; it is human, it is everything, it will redeem the work.”
― James Ensor.
17. “Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form.”
― Robert Bringhurst.
18. “For me, typography is a triangular relationship between design idea, typographic elements, and printing technique.”
― Wolfgang Weingart.
19. “Every page should explode, either because of its staggering absurdity, the enthusiasm of its principles, or its typography.”
— Tristan Tzara, ‘Manifesti Del Dadaismo’.
20. “The typographer must articulate them enough to make them clear, yet not so strongly that the form instead of the content steals the show.”
― Robert Bringhurst, ‘The Elements Of Typographic Style’.
21. “You can’t be a good typographer if you aren’t a good reader.”
― Stephen Coles.
22. “Typography is two-dimensional architecture, based on experience and imagination, and guided by rules and readability.”
― Hermann Zapf.
23. “Only when the design fails does it call attention to itself; when it succeeds, it’s invisible.”
― John D. Berry.
24. “Display type is a visual voice. Without reading, it imparts its messages.”
― Laura Worthington.
25. “When it is a good design, the reader has to feel comfortable because the letter is both banal and beautiful.”
― Adrian Frutiger.
26. “The domain may be unfamiliar, but establishing contexts, understanding limitations, and identifying options is a constant in design.”
― Gerry Leonidas.
27. “Type design moves at the pace of the most conservative reader. The good type-designer, therefore, realizes that, for a new font to be successful, it has to be so good that only very few recognize its novelty.”
― Stanley Morison.
28. “Some very talented type designers have given us a wealth of new tools to work with; let’s put them to use.”
― John D. Berry.
29. “Type design is about function. Drawing pretty shapes isn’t enough.”
― James Todd.
30. “Type design is a job where there is no room for easy solutions. Letters can perhaps be designed quickly using a compass and ruler, but these are unsuitable for a typeface, as they fail to satisfy the subtle optical laws that make reading enjoyable.”
― Georg Salden.
31. “When a type design is good it is not because each individual letter of the alphabet is perfect in form, but because there is a feeling of harmony and unbroken rhythm that runs through the whole design, each letter kin to every other and to all.”
― Frederic Goudy.
32. “Typography has one plain duty before it and that is to convey information in writing. No argument or consideration can absolve typography from this duty.”
― Emil Ruder.
33. “There are bad types and good types, and the whole science and art of typography begins after the first category has been set aside.”
― Beatrice Warde.
34. “Type designers are, at their best, the Stradivarii of literature: not merely makers of salable products, but artists who design and make the instruments that other artists use.”
― Robert Bringhurst, ‘The Elements Of Typographic Style’.
35. “Typography should be seen as a living entity; each element integrally related, in harmony with the whole, and essential to the execution of an idea.”
— Paul Rand, ‘A Designer’s Art’.
36. “Typography needs to be audible. Typography needs to be felt. Typography needs to be experienced.”
― Helmut Schmid.
37. “Art is not a mirror to reflect reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.”
― Bertolt Brecht.
38. “You can do a good ad without good typography, but you can’t do a great ad without good typography.”
― Herb Lubalin.
39. “All schools should be teaching typography; we should be fundamentally aware of how typographic language is forming out.”
― Neville Brody.
40. “Perfect typography is certainly the most elusive of all arts. Sculpture in stone alone comes near it in obstinacy.”
― Jan Tschichold.
41. “Good typography, first, makes words readable. At its best, it does something more: it helps express the animating spirit of the ideas behind the words.”
― Michael Bierut.
42. “Typography tended to alter language from a means of perception and exploration to a portable commodity.”
― Marshall McLuhan.
43. “Typography must be as beautiful as a forest, not like the concrete jungle of the tenements. It gives distance between the trees, the room to breathe and allow for life.”
― Adrian Frutiger.
44. “Typography is what language looks like.”
― Ellen Lupton.
45. “Plenty of white space and generous line spacing, and don’t make the type size too miserly. Then you will be assured of a product fit for a king.”
― Giambattista Bodoni.
46. “You have to be a critical, savage editor of your own work.”
― Kris Sowerby.
47. “My approach is to conceive and create each letter as if it were a logo.”
― Olivier Gourvat.
48. “Type is branding. More designers should understand what an opportunity that is.”
― Elizabeth Carey Smith.
49. “Be available. Respond. Follow up. Engage. Share knowledge freely.”
― Daniel Patrick Simmons.
50. “Typographical design should perform optically what the speaker creates through voice and gesture of his thoughts.”
― El Lizzitsky.
51. “Words have meaning. Type has spirit. The combination is spectacular.”
― Paula Scher.
52. “I’ve come to think that Helvetica was never intended to be the cold, perfect, rational typeface it’s portrayed to be. There is a subtle warmth in the shapes that was lost over the years.”
― Christian Schwartz.
53. “The letters of the alphabet, the character of a typeface, are building blocks. Besides being symbols to construct a written language, they can be used to compose any visual impression imaginable.”
― Max Kisman.
54. “Making a seriffed typeface based on a sans serif leads to unbalanced proportions. I am of course not saying you cannot design a sans serif without first making a seriffed typeface, there are a lot of fine sans serifs that are designed without a written base. But when a family of serif and sans serif is created it is my conviction that the seriffed version is the starting point.”
― Martin Majoor.
55. “Typeface becomes impossible to tell if they are easy to read because they are commonly used, or if they are commonly used because they are easy to read.”
― Zuzana Licko.
56. “The empty spaces are the most important aspect of a typeface.”
― Adrian Frutiger.
57. “Your choice of typeface is as important as what you do with it.”
― Bonnie Siegler.
58. “Typeface development is the most artistic science and the most scientific art there is.”
― David Marshall.
59. “For a new font to be successful it has to be so good that only very few recognize its novelty.”
― Stanley Morison.
60. “Building a good font collection is like populating one’s wardrobe. It requires a balance between versatility and expressivity, everyday accessories and special outfits, for special occasions.”
― Jean-Bapitste Levee.
61. “I discovered that I never really used Helvetica but I like to look at it. I like the VW beetle, too, although I’ve never driven one.”
― Stefan Sagmeister.
62. “Helvetica is the sweatpants of typefaces.”
― John Broadley.
63. “Helvetica is the jeans, and Univers the dinner jacket. Helvetica is here to stay.”
― Adrian Frutiger.
64. “If you have no intuitive sense of design, then call yourself an ‘information architect’ and only use Helvetica.”
― David Carson.
65. “Helvetica is good for typographers who do not know what to say.”
― Thomas Bohm.
66. “Are some free fonts a gift to humanity rather than a blight on typographic civilization?”
― Ellen Lupton.”
67. “A modulated serif text face usually does not, and they may be stripped of serifs so that they look streamlined and somehow modern, but they have the forms we’re used to in a typeface for reading.”
― John D. Berry.
68. “Everywhere you look you see typefaces. But there’s one you probably see more than any other one, and that’s Helvetica.”
― Michael Bierut.
69. “The meaning is in the content of the text and not in the typeface, and that is why we loved Helvetica very much.”
― Wim Crouwel.
70. “Type is saying things to us all the time. Typefaces express a mood, an atmosphere. They give words a certain coloring.”
― Rick Poynor.
71. “There are people that thinks that type should be expressive. They have a different point of view from mine.”
― Massimo Vignelli.
72. “For me Helvetica is just this beautiful, timeless thing. And certain things shouldn’t be messed with, you know?”
― Michael C. Place.
73. “If we want to speak to people, we need to know their language. In order to design for understanding, we need to understand design.”
― Erik Spiekermann.
74. “Inspiration. From real life. I open my eyes and I travel and I look. I read everything.”
― Erik Spiekermann.
75. “Contrary to popular belief, designers are not artists. We employ artistic methods to visualize thinking and process, but, unlike artists, we work to solve a client’s problem, not present our own view of the world.”
― Erik Spiekermann.
76. “The attention someone gives to what he or she makes is reflected in the end result, whether it is obvious or not.”
― Erik Spiekermann.
77. “I’m very much a word person, so that’s why typography for me is the obvious extension. It just makes my words visible.”
― Erik Spiekermann.
78. “Inherent quality is part of absolute quality and without it things will appear shoddy. The users may not know why, but they always sense it.”
― Erik Spiekermann.
79. “I love to be a graphic designer, but could we get rid of clients somehow please?”
― Erik Spiekermann.
80. “Work is gas. Work will fill any given volume.”
― Erik Spiekermann.
81. “I mean, everyone puts their history into their work.”
― Erik Spiekermann.
82. “You have to have a strategy, and you also have to be able to visualize it – one doesn’t go without the other.”
― Erik Spiekermann.
83. “I submit to you, if the kids today had to cast off, count character, use a haberule and do the math. There wouldn’t be as many people wanting to pursue a Career in Design.”
― Frank Briggs.
84. “The first time I drew type, I felt like I was at the bottom of Mount Everest.”
― Nina Stössinger.
85. “Lettering is like clay. Type is like lego.”
― Mark Simonson.
86. “Type is a dance and the designer is the choreographer, sort of.”
― Richard Lipton.
87. “It’s never too early to talk to your child about typography.”
― Ellen Lupton.
88. “Graphic Design will save the world right after rock and roll does.”
― David Carson.
89. “90 percent of design is typography. And the other 90 percent is whitespace.”
― Jeffrey Zeldman.
90. “Type is a designer’s best friend.” ― Lester Beall