ILT Blog Contents — World’s favorite typography blog since 2007

I Love Typography was born out of the love of type — it’s in the name. If you’re new here, typography 101 is a good place to start. We also have articles on graphic design and designing typefaces, and interviews with designers. Want help choosing fonts? Try Expert Lists, Steven Heller’s Font of the Month and Fonts in Focus. Read one of our long-form articles — meticulously researched & compelling stories about type history, book history, and typographic firsts. Want to have fun while learning the basics? Play one of our Font Games, including font identification, font anatomy, graphic design, and early type history quizzes.

Popular categories

Typography 101: Typography is about guidelines rather than rules or prescriptions. Learn them here.

Interviews: What makes designers tick? How do they work? What inspires them?

Type History: Learn how typography transformed the world with a mix of short- & long-form articles.

Book Reviews: books about type design, graphic design and design history.

Type Design: All you ever needed to know about designing typefaces and making fonts.

Font Games: Games & quizzes to test your knowledge of fonts, type history & graphic design.

Printing History: Typographic Firsts

The advent of moveable type transformed the world ushering in an era of global mass communication. Discover the origins of the first italic type, the first female typographer, the first illustrated books, the first books printed in the Americas, read about the most dangerous book in the world, and many other typographic firsts.

The First Roman Fonts

First Female Typographer

First Printer’s Mark

First Children’s Books

First Printed Herbals

First Fashion Books

Invention of the Title Page

First Cook Books

First Illustrated Books

First Printing in Gold

A History of the Manicule

First Math Book

Designing typefaces: Making fonts

Stories and interviews about the science and craft of designing typefaces.

Designing Antarctican

The Music of Type Design

Through Thick & Thin

Making a Chromatic Typeface

Making Waves with Magasin

Designing Type Systems

Climbing Everest: Zapfino Arabic

The Questa Project

Krul: The Untold History

OpenType: Engaging contextuality

Beauty & Ugliness in Type Design

Designing a Signage Typeface

Making GT Sectra

Letters in Wonderland

A Few Things I’ve Learned About Type Design

Typography 101: Fundamentals

ILT’s Typography 101 covers fundamental typographic principles, an intro to type classification, various kinds of serif, type terminology, and a brief history of typography.

Arial versus Helvetica

Think you can tell them apart? The rumble in the font jungle: Seconds our, round one…

A Brief History of Typography

A short intro to the history of typography and European printing & type classification.

Who Shot the Serif?

Know your serifs. A brief guide to various serif types.

Extreme Type Terminology

A five-part, quick-fire typography terminology tour de force.

On Choosing Type

The art of typography and type choice.

Embracing White Space

Learn to master this crucial aspect of typography, type- and graphic design.

A Font Lover’s Guide to Numerals

Do you know your tubular figures from your old style figures?

Apostrophes Don’t Swing Both Ways

Why the apostrophe mustn’t swing both ways!

Lists: Curated fonts

Curated lists of fonts from the ILT Store, including the popular Expert Lists series, meticulously curated by Johannes López Ayala, typographic branding expert, creative director, and lecturer. See also Steven Heller’s Font of the Month.

Must-have Fonts of 2026

Must-have Fonts of 2025

Expert Lists: Fonts for Culture Branding

Expert Lists: Seb Lester’s fav Calligraphy Fonts

Expert Lists: Fonts for Books

Expert Lists: Fonts for UI/UX Design

Expert Lists: Fonts for the Metaverse

Favorite Fonts of 2023

Must-have Fonts of 2023

Favorite Fonts of 2022

Fonts in Focus

Our Fonts in Focus series showcases great typefaces in fewer than 500 words. They may be new releases or older, perhaps overlooked ones that deserve more attention.