Email

Great example but no need to call me insufferable. My answer still helped OP.

...

M-W?:

typography

1 : letterpress printing

2 : the style, arrangement, or appearance of typeset matter

Graphic design

the art or profession of using design elements (such as typography and images) to convey information or create an effect

But playing dictionary IS being insufferable. If some random biz teacher wants to call graphic design “typography”, sure, it confused the student but they figured it out with the magic of r/ the thing. If you want to call graphic design “typography” to communicate with average people, sure, fair. But I wouldn’t recommend going to a magazine editor and saying: the typography on this page is really boring, let’s punch it up. You’re going to say, let’s punch up the graphic design of this page by adding a big headline, some color, do some pull quotes, do something with the typography to add emphasis, blah blah blah. Specificity is good.

I’m not even 100% committed to this position but if typography is every visual thing to do with text, then what is graphic design or page layout? FWIW this debate happens in r/graphicdesign and r/illustration and probably everywhere else too.

/r/typography Thread Parent