Lately I’ve been musing about the importance of typography in design. For me, the choice and relationship of font families is key to both the visual style of an individual project and the overall brand identity of the organization. Just like art and photo direction, color palette, arrangement & page layout, and ink & paper selection, typography is an essential element of visual communication. For me, typography is content.

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Random font test 03 is my first foray into using text functions in Processing. Yes, I’m still working with procedural code. Eventually, I hope to get my head around true object oriented programming (OOP) for more interactivity and generative art goodness. Above and below are a few stills (click to enlarge), and here’s a short movie of the results (1.25 MB .mov), also on Vimeo.

Working on a long-term design plan and identity system at my current job has rekindled my love for typography—from the historical to the contemporary. Below are some of the resources which I’ve found useful:

• Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students by Ellen Lupton
• 20Th-Century Type Remix by Lewis Blackwell
• Typology: Type Design from the Victorian Era to the Digital Age by Steven Heller, Louise Fili
• Type: The Secret History of Letters by Simon Loxley
• A Tally of Types by Stanley Morison, Brooke Crutchley
• Typographic Design: Form and Communication by Rob Carter, Ben Day, Philip B. Meggs
• Digital Type Design Guide: The Page Designer’s Guide to Working With Type by Sean Cavanaugh, Ken Oyer
• FontBook: Digital Typeface Compendium by FontShop