Ask HN: What are the best typography talks? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What are the best typography talks?

77 pointsfarleykr18 comments

Hi all, I'm looking for some good talks on typography. What do you think are the most helpful talks on typography? Or which did you learn the most from?

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It’s not a talk, but you’ll learn a lot watching Gary Hustwit’s movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helvetica_(film)

It’s much more than a history of the typeface. They walk through fashions and trends in design over the last half century, how that influences typography and vice versa. Most of the talking is by professional typographers and designers, so you get a lovely window into their trade. It’s one of my favorite documentaries.

https://practicaltypography.com/

https://typographyforlawyers.com/

https://beautifulracket.com/

Racket package by Butterick for book layout, https://docs.racket-lang.org/pollen/

(sixth RacketCon): Matthew Butterick -- The Making of “Beautiful Racket”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_ptYjf8Bes

tacking on my other typography resources since we're making this a general thread: https://github.com/sw-yx/spark-joy/blob/master/README.md#typ...

Wonderful!

Luc(as) de Groot hosts a battle between TrueType and PostScript curves here: https://youtu.be/I75Efo7whrs

Once there you'll find other TypoLabs talks...

Mike Abbink gave a great presentation about the development of IBM Plex - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzLKjeuXLQY

Yves Peters has a few talks about fonts and type - his "Trajan in movie posters: the rise and fall of the Roman Empire" is a popular talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0ELcasdlXY (2015 date) His talk about fonts and sex is good too: https://youtu.be/JfdTZDNE3Xw

I enjoyed this talk about crazy OpenType techniques - "Yes, But Can Variable Fonts Do This — Rainer Erich Scheichelbauer" which is at https://youtu.be/ZM1vSHzD3HI

I really recommended looking up type / layout in a library if you have a good one near you. The classic material on is, unsurprisingly, to be found in books.

Stuff you find online is US-centric and barely has a toe in the world of the printing past. That’s not to say it isn’t interesting, but it barely scratches the surface.

(Example: it is unlikely one would ever learn about mortising on The Internet, but “keming” jokes are ten a penny.)

I liked Jonathan Hoefler's episode from Netflix's Abstract series. https://www.netflix.com/co-en/title/80057883

I agree! It really got me excited and interested in typography.

For an insightful look at creating modern commercial type this talk[0] from Typographics 2017 features Kris Sowersby of Klim Type detailing the process of taking his "Untitled" fonts from inception all the way through to marketing. You can find some other videos where he discusses adapting historical typefaces which may also be of interest.

In general Typographics[1], The Type Directors Club[2], and Type@Cooper[3] all have good talks depending on what you're looking for.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PyfwbXWaUk

[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFCAIdei-H8VYD2NK1S3HkA

[2] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjKXDLrb6mrftD1NW-r4l5w

[3] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-WfLn9ekLD_SMrB7APoZ...

This may not be what you are looking for, as it’s about history rather than usage. However, if you are interested in the subject you may find it quite interesting, and perhaps helpful in some manner too.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcNA74tz9QNL45RbC3iKtcQKX...

Talk: Web Typography (48mins)

I can recommend this 2018 talk on tips for Web typography:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbIZX6tE9JY

The tips are:

1. Don't trust computers

2. Use the default font size for paragraph text

3. Adjust type size according to reading distance

4. Adjust the font size if the typeface requires it

5. Set tables to be read

6. Resize display text as you would an image

7. Reduce your playload

8. Optimise page render timing

There is a lot more detail than suggested by the headings above. I found the talk informative and helpful.

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Course: Typography for Developers (2hrs)

This is not a talk, but a course. Treehouse (an online course provider) just recently posted a typography course on the freecodecamp YouTube channel. I've not watched the course so can't comment on whether it's good or not but it's aimed at developers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agbh1wbfJt8

Not talks, but maybe an index into some names you can google to find talks. http://luc.devroye.org/usa-newyork.html

The Flawless Typography Checklist (https://www.typewolf.com/checklist) from Typewolf is a great resource that has served me well on multiple projects. It covers the following:

- Punctuation & Type

- Body Text

- Legibility & Readability

- Layout & Hierarchy

- Typeface Selection & Pairing

- Design & Branding

The Typewolf site itself is pretty cool as well, but skews towards print/graphic/marketing site design that isn't always applicable to applications, though there are some exceptions.

Try this channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TypeDirectorsClub

Typography is an art, so it's very personal. I particularly enjoyed this talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgsHSVsNRdg —the guy's whole sensibility, etc.

This isn’t quite a talk, but this episode of Abstract with the founder of Hoefler & Co was quite interesting: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt10990038/

Not a talk, but Ellen Lupton's book, Thinking with Type, is really good: http://thinkingwithtype.com/

You might get a lot out of the documentary Helvetica by Gary Hustwit

Not a talk, but I thoroughly enjoyed and learned a lot from the book Stop Stealing Sheep and Find Out How Type Works from Adobe Press

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