Week 6: The Power of Typography

This week's focus on typography was fascinating to me. I had studied very similar points in the past in my bachelor's, but in particular, our assignment gave me a powerful new insight into how motivating, for better or for worse, type can be. In designing my own type system, I had to think very consciously about why each font should be chosen. In what medium will this be used? What is the purpose of this specific font? How should the heading font function compared to the body copy font? In designing it, I discovered just how powerful type can be in drawing me in to a website or publication. It was amazing to me how quickly badly selected type renders an article devoid of credibility, frustrating to read, and in essence just a terrible mess to try to focus on. On the other hand, a cohesive type system very naturally draws you in, pulls you to the most significant details while easing your reading experience. Even in just looking at the dummy text example from our presentation, I could tell that were that a real article, I would have most likely taken the time to read it. The aesthetics alone invited me in, and I want to make typography work for me in the same way.

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