Updated: Oct 6, 2020
If you are a design nerd like me, good typography makes you happy. In celebration of curiosity and having more fun at work, here are the top websites and tools to inspire you to make a deep dive in to typography.
Overview
Inspiration
Typography skills and tricks
Make your own fonts
Made with designer in mind, this truly is a fun way to find typography inspiration. The animations make the content more dynamic and the shuffle mode is "like having a brainstorming meeting with yourself"
Do you love combining mood boarding and designing, then this site from Hoefler&Co
is perfect for you. Find a design you love and start poking around for fonts. Anytime you click, it will show you the font used, simple as that!
Or as it is also known, Tinder for fonts! Choose "love" or "hate" and see the next option. The ones you love are stored under “my type” so you can access them whenever you are ready.
Find the perfect Google font pairings by selecting between options like "serif" or "sans serif" pairings. The benefit of using only Google fonts is that they will all be available to you and the client for free with easy integration.
Find out what fonts a website is using with this easy to use Chrome extension. For the times when you stumble over something you love and just have to know what it is.
If you know roughly the look you are after but not the exact font, this tool is really helpful. The custom AI has organised fonts of similar characteristics close to each other and lets you browse fonts across the map. This project is a way for IDEO to inspire designers to experiment with AI and step outside their comfort zone with new font options.
This website allows you to decide the level on contrast you would like between two fonts and suggest a pairing. It is very easy to use and it can be a great way to spark inspiration. You can type your own text to see the result and if you are not happy with the choices, just press “Generate” until you find something you like.
Emotype lets you find fonts based on your emotions. This is a nice go-to if you are new to typography and need something to kickstart your designs.
A classic, Typewolf features sites with great font pairings so you can see them in action. It is the perfect place to get inspiration both for design and typography. If you find it hard to imagine the end result staring at fonts on a white background, this site is for you.
This inspiring site highlight the use of typography in the form of poster designs. It is a lovely place to browse for innovative uses of fonts you might have see before. They also show a link to the creatives behind the design so you can explore more of their work.
You probably know Typekit as the place where you download most of your fonts but did you know they have a learning section? You can find beautifully designed inspiration and tips about everything typography.
Canva's guide to font pairings
This is a great guide for anyone wanting to learn about font pairings that really work and the logic behind them. You can find 30 pairings with examples so it is also useful for when you need to create something with a certain feeling in mind.
If you are after solid design principles to improve your designs, this is the perfect guide. The minimalist approach shows how to decide on font weight and styles when pairing fonts. They also have a video summary of the guide if you prefer watching over reading.
The size proportion between your different titles, subtitles and body have a great impact on your final design result. This is a template for font sizes to help you decide on the visual hierarchy.
This is a very easy to use scaling tool that lets you alter the font and proportions to generate the final result in a preview. The preview is really helpful to get a better impression of the final result and makes the iteration process very easy.
Creating your own fonts is a great way to bring extra customisation to a project but also gives you more freedom creating unique designs.
Write your own symbols and letter, upload and start using your new font. Calligraphr is really intuitive. They offer a template and you can edit the appearance such as spacing and baseline in the program.
If you don't want to start your own font from scratch, Prototypo lets you base your font on hand picked options. The flexibility is really what makes this site so fun to use, and you can see the results as you keep editing. My favorite part is that you can actually alter letters individually without affecting the whole alphabet. As someone who constantly vote against fonts because of the poor appearances of a few letters, this is perfect. One of the most built out functions is the serif editor. If you have a look through the video below, you will see how the appearance of serifs can change in pretty much any way you like.
Good luck designing and if you have a favorite tool you would like to share, join our Facebook community and spread the wisdom!