Quotes About Typography

The argument that a serif font is too fussy doesn't cut it anymore. You want a font where the letter forms are not ambiguous.

Capitals are called uppercase letters because typesetters would store them in the "upper case." Small letters were kept in the "lower case.

Typographic style is founded not on any one technology of typesetting or printing, but on the primitive yet subtle craft of writing.

Typographic man can express but is helpless to read the configurations of print technology.

Type is saying things to us all the time. Typefaces express a mood, an atmosphere. They give words a certain coloring.

Space in typography is like time in music. It is infinitely divisible, but a few proportional intervals can be much more useful than a limitless choice of arbitrary quantities.

Typography at its best is a visual form of language linking timelessness and time.

an interrobang is an unorthodox combination of question mark and exclamation point. How did this happen?!!!???

I changed my name from Gail to Gayle in seventh grade because I liked to make a loopy 'y.'

As both a fine artist and a graphic designer, I specialize in the visual presentation of words.

And another small point, or two actually; Aldus was the first to use the modern semicolon.

alphabetic scripts tend to have between 20 and 40 characters (Russian, for example, has 36 signs, and Arabic has 28).

Discounting every punctuation mark and every space—which any printer knows occupy just as much time to set as does a single letter—there are no fewer than 227,779,589 letters and numbers.

Readers usually ignore the typographic interface, gliding comfortably along literacy's habitual groove. Sometimes, however, the interface should be allowed to fail. By making itself evident, typography can illuminate the construction and identity of a page, screen, place, or product.

Designers provide ways into—and out of—the flood of words by breaking up text into pieces and offering shortcuts and alternate routes through masses of information. (...) Although many books define the purpose of typography as enhancing the readability of the written word, one of design's most humane functions is, in actuality, to help readers avoid reading.

Although many books define the purpose of typography as enhancing the readability of the written word, one of design's most humane functions is in actuality, to help readers avoid reading.

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.

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. A printed work which cannot be read becomes a product without purpose.

The alphabet (and its extension into typography) made possible the spread of the power that is knowledge, and shattered the bonds of tribal man, thus exploding him into an agglomeration of individuals. Electric writing and speed pour upon him, instantaneously and continuously, the concerns of all other men. He becomes tribal once more. The human family becomes one tribe again.

The wording should be simple and exact, Boorman went on, and use the familiar language of the profession. Even the look of the checklist matters. Ideally, it should fit on one page. It should be free of clutter and unnecessary colors. It should use both uppercase and lowercase text for ease of reading. (He went so far as to recommend using a sans serif type like Helvetica.)

If you love it, you don't know much about typography. And if you hate it, you really don't know much about typography either and you should get another hobby.

Old typography or letter woodblocks that are hand-carved, cracked, and worn are especially beautiful. I love that aged, handmade effect, and that's why I don't muck around much with Photoshop.

The shapes of letters do not derive their beauty from any sensual or sentimental reminiscences' he wrote. 'No one can say that the O's roundness appeals to us only because it is like that of an apple or a girl's breast or of the full moon. Letters are things, not pictures of things

Type has rhythm, just like music.