Praise for

F ully revised and expanded, the third

ELLEN LUPTON | thinking with type | 3RD EDITION

THINKING WITH TYPE edition of Thinking with Type features dozens
of new fonts, examples, exercises, insights, and
3RD EDITION
Lovingly made and expertly written, the
tips. Every inch of this classic work has been updated
and redesigned. With thirty-two more pages than
ELLEN LUPTON
third edition of Thinking with Type is a tour the previous editions, this new volume is packed
de force—a must-read for both novices and
experts in the world of type. Beautifully
with additional content, including a wider range of
designed and a joy to read. typefaces, beautiful artifacts from the Letterform

thinking

t ype
—Nadine Chahine, CEO of I Love Typo-
Archive, and more work by women and bipoc
graphy Ltd and director at ArabicType Ltd
designers. Visual essays authored by leading experts

with
This new edition of Thinking with Type is explore a diverse array of writing systems.
important and critical for anyone interested
in typography and design. It presents, Thinking with Type, 3rd Edition, covers the basics
expands, and also challenges the typographic and beyond, from typefaces and type families to
canon with international and thought-
provoking contents. kerning, tracking, balance, grids, alignment, and
theory
—Loraine Furter, graphic designer Gestalt principles. Lucid diagrams show how letters,
words, and text can be spaced, ordered, and shaped.

practice
This book is the inclusive typography guide the
industry deserves as it embraces the humanity This accessible guide is essential reading for anyone effective
behind some of the world’s diverse writing
systems, and the languages and cultures that
working in, studying, or teaching graphic design, UI/
have contributed to typography’s rich history. UX, branding, or publishing.
—Kaleena Sales, chair, Department of Art

E
& Design, Tennessee State University
llen Lupton is a writer, designer, and educator. Her books how / why
Thinking with Type presents the fundamentals include Graphic Design Thinking, Design Is Storytelling, and
of typography and page design with style and Extra Bold: A Feminist, Inclusive, Anti-racist, Nonbinary Field
wit. This new edition advances the material Guide for Graphic Designers. Lupton is the Betty Cooke and William
significantly with global, more inclusive O. Steinmetz Chair in Design at MICA (Maryland Institute College of
examples of how type works and for whom.
—Briar Levit, professor of graphic design,
Art). She is curator emerita at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design 3RD EDITION
Portland State University
Museum, where her exhibitions included The Senses: Design Beyond
Vision, Herbert Bayer: Bauhaus Master, How Posters Work, and REVISED AND EXPANDED
Mechanical Brides. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
As a student, I read the first edition of
Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton cover to MORE A critical guide for
cover multiple times. With every new edition,
Ellen continues to awe, inspire, and impress FONTS designers, writers,
with thoughtful updates. This third edition
VOICES editors, and students
is without doubt a must-read for students
and professionals, expanding our knowledge EXAMPLES
on multiple scripts and languages in our
increasingly interconnected world. PAGES
—Lynne Yun, founder of Space Type PEOPLE
PRINCIPLES
 typography
is everywhere
 a
x
 Ellen Lupton

thinking

typ e
with

3RD EDITION
REVISED AND EXPANDED
A critical guide
for designers,
writers, editors,
and students
 letter
6 INTRODUCTION 8 HUMANS AND MACHINES

32 ANATOMY
33 Latin
34 Arabic
35 Chinese
36 Korean
37 Japanese
38 Indic

40 TYPEFACES AND FONTS

42 Height
46 Width
54 Classifying Typefaces
58 Choosing Typefaces
64 Type Families
68 Capitals
70 Italics
72 Numerals
76 Punctuation
80 Optical Sizes
84 Variable Fonts
88 Ornaments
92 Lettering
94 Designing Typefaces
96 exercise | Modular Letterforms
98 exercise | Branding with Type
text layout
102 READERS, WRITERS, AND USERS 204 SCAFFOLDS AND SKELETONS

114 COLUMNS, LINES, AND SPACING 218 BALANCE AND ALIGNMENT

116 Aligning Columns 220 Symmetry and Asymmetry
124 Line Length 222 Grouping
126 Paragraphs 226 Aligning Elements
128 Short Lines 228 Borders
132 Kerning
134 Tracking 230 GRIDS
138 Vertical Space 232 Manuscript Grid
144 Vertical Text 234 Column Grid
148 Legibility and Readability 236 Modular Grid
150 Readable Prose 240 Baseline Grid
152 exercise | Texture 242 Responsive Layouts
154 exercise | Space 244 Serial Design
246 exercise | Grid and Anti-Grid
156 HIERARCHY AND STRUCTURE 248 exercise | Extended Series
158 Minimal Hierarchy
160 Layered Hierarchy 250 CONTRIBUTORS
164 Type Scale 251 INDEX
166 Visual and Semantic Hierarchy
168 Inclusive Design
170 exercise | Grids and Hierarchy

172 MULTIPLICITY OF SCRIPTS

174 Arabic Typography
178 Chinese Typography
182 Korean Typography
190 Japanese Typography
194 Indic Typography
200 Kigelia: A Typeface for Africa
 Hood’s Sarsaparilla (1884). In this
advertising postcard, a woman’s healthy face
bursts through a sheet of text. Her shining
eyes and bright complexion demonstrate the
product’s efficacy more vividly than written
ad copy. Both text and image were drawn by
hand, reproduced via color lithography.

6
 introduction
The first edition of Thinking with Type appeared in 2004. Since
then, designers worldwide have used this book to explore the art
and craft of typography. Twenty years later, every last pica of this
trusty tome has been renovated and refreshed. My understand-
ing of design has grown and stretched, and so has this book. Now Trusty

in its third edition, Thinking with Type has more pages and more
content. The layouts have more space to breathe, and the text is
more inclusive and accessible.
3rd edition

Thinking with Type, Third Edition features dozens of new and

interesting fonts. You will see classic fonts, weird fonts, Libre
fonts, Google fonts, Adobe fonts, indie fonts, and fonts and de-
2nd edition
1st edition

sign work created by women and people of color. Leading experts

have contributed visual essays about some of the world’s writing
systems. These introductions to various scripts supplement the
more fonts book’s main focus—working with Latin typography. The new
edition also explores basic layout principles, such as visual bal-
ance and Gestalt grouping, making this book an integral guide
for graphic design.
Thinking with Type highlights common mistakes and how to fix
them. Previous editions used the phrase “type crimes” to poke
fun at self-important type snobs—myself included. Alas, this
mocking phrase makes light of real crimes and inhumane pun-
ishments. In the process of writing this new edition, I thought
about removing typographic gaffes altogether. In the end, I de-
cided that explaining errors in a nonjudgmental way helps read-
×♥ ers take loving care of typography’s living traditions.
This book welcomes everyone who works or plays with words.
Typography is a tool for reading, writing, and learning—and for
finding joy and revelation. Many thanks to Letterform Archive
for the stunning photographs of historical works; to my teachers,
students, family, and friends for their care and patience; and to
the designers who wrote down the rules long before me.

thinking with type, third edition 7

8
 humans and
machines
Writing systems emerge from the body. The first typefaces

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| | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
copied calligraphy (which means “beautiful handwriting”) and
everyday scripts. But unlike written forms, typefaces are man-
ufactured symbols designed for repetition. The history of type
reflects tensions between hand and machine production, organic
and geometric forms, and the human body and abstract systems.
These tensions still energize type design today.
Movable type, invented by Johannes Gutenberg, revolution-
ized writing across Europe. Previously, scribes had made books
by hand, a slow and expensive process. In the system of movable
type, letters are cast from a mold and assembled into forms for
printing. After printing the pages, workers sorted and stored
the letters for reuse. Movable type is considered the first form
of mass production.
Movable type proved efficient for printing alphabetic scripts—
latin bible (1455). This book such as Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic—which translate spoken
launched the invention of sounds into a few dozen marks. Although Gutenberg printed
movable type in Europe.
The book was printed by his books with metal type, he wanted his products to look hand-
Johannes Gutenberg, Johann made. He created variations of many characters to emulate the
Fust, and Peter Schoeffer in
Mainz, Germany. Artisans dense, dark script known as blackletter or fraktur. He also cre-
added decorative initials by
hand to match the luxurious
ated ligatures, characters combining two or more letters into a
appearance of manuscripts. single mark. Such details made the process of producing books
Reproduced with kind
permission, Letterform less efficient but more naturalistic.
Archive. The oldest printed book in existence, Diamond Sutra, was
+ On the history of printing, created in China in 868 CE.+ It was produced with woodblock
see Michael F. Suarez S.J. and
H. R. Woudhuysen, The Book: A
printing, a technique well-suited to the Chinese writing system,
Global History (Oxford: Oxford which employs thousands of unique characters. In this process,
University Press, 2013) and Alan
Bartram, Five Hundred Years of artisans trace characters onto the block and carve around them.
Book Design (London: British
Library, 2001).
These workers did not need to know how to read, which helped
make the technique economical.

thinking with type, third edition 9

 Woodblocks were also vital in Korea, where the vast Buddhist
text Tripitaka, printed 1236–1251 CE, required more than eighty
thousand blocks. In addition to carving wood, Korean printers
developed metal type in the thirteenth century. Movable type
proved especially suitable for printing the Korean alphabet,
Hangeul (also spelled Hangul), designed by King Sejong in 1443.
Writing systems and techniques for copying them have flour-
ished around the world.+ Although Gutenberg was unaware of
Asian printing history, his invention built on various precedents
in Europe, including woodblocks, manuscripts, wine presses,
and metal coins stamped with punches.

Diamond Sutra (868 CE). + Amalia E. Gnanadesikan, The

Printed in China, this book Writing Revolution: Cuneiform to
employed carved wood the Internet (Hoboken, NJ: John
blocks printed on loose Wiley & Sons, 2009).
sheets of paper, later
assembled into a scroll.
Collection of the British
Library.

10 HUMANS AND MACHINES

 |L|E|T|T|E|R|
| | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
The revised comprehensive
mirror of good government
(1422). Book page set in
bronze movable type. Printed
leaf collected in Melvin P.
McGovern, Korean Movable
Types (Dawson’s Book Shop,
1966). Reproduced with
kind permission, Letterform
Archive.

thinking with type, third edition 11

HUMANISM In fifteenth-century Italy, humanist writers and scholars em-
AND THE BODY ployed various styles of handwriting. Lettera Antiqua is a classi-
cal script with wide, open forms. The preference for Lettera An-
tiqua was part of the Renaissance (rebirth) of classical Greek and
Roman art, architecture, and scholarship, a movement known
as humanism. Nicolas Jenson, a Frenchman who had learned
to print in Germany, established an influential printing firm in
Venice around 1469. His typefaces merged the Gothic traditions
of France and Germany with the Italian taste for rounder, lighter
+ On the origins of roman type, forms. He created some of the first roman typefaces.+
see Gerrit Noordzij, Letterletter
(Vancouver: Hartley and Marks, Many typefaces in use today, including Garamond, Bembo,
2000) and John Boardley, Palatino, and Jenson, are named for printers who worked in the
Typographic Firsts: Adventures
in Early Printing (Oxford: fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The style of these typefaces is
Bodleian Library, University of
Oxford, 2021). called humanist. Over time, revivals of historical typefaces have
been designed to work with changing technologies and current
demands for sharpness, uniformity, language support, and more.
Some revivals are based on metal types, punches, or drawings
that still exist; most rely on printed specimens.
Italic letters, introduced in fifteenth-century Italy, were mod-
eled on a more casual handwriting style. While the upright hu-
manist forms appeared in expensive manuscript books, the cur-
sive style thrived in the cheaper writing shops, where it could
be written more quickly. Aldus Manutius, a Venetian printer,
publisher, and scholar, used italic typefaces in his internation-
ally distributed series of small, inexpensive printed books. For
calligraphers, the italic form was cheaper because it saved time,
while for printers, the cursive form saved space. Aldus Manutius
often paired cursive letters with roman capitals; the two styles
were considered fundamentally distinct.
Francesco Griffo designed In the sixteenth century, printers began integrating roman
roman and italic types for
Aldus Manutius. Roman and italic forms into type families with matching weights and
and italic were conceived x-heights (the height of the main body of the lowercase letter).
as separate typefaces.
This page was printed in Today, the italic style in many fonts is more than a slanted ver-
1525. Reproduced with kind sion of the roman; it incorporates the curves, angles, and narrow-
permission, Letterform
Archive. er proportions associated with cursive forms.

12 HUMANS AND MACHINES

 BIOGRAPHY OF A HUMANIST REVIVAL

1471 | Nicolas Jenson

Jenson learned to print
in Mainz, the German
birthplace of typography,

|L|E|T|T|E|R|
| | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
before establishing his own
printing press in Venice. The
strokes resemble the path
of a broad-nibbed pen. The
presses and paper of the
era yielded blunt, imperfect
impressions. Reproduced
with kind permission,
Letterform Archive.

1890 | Golden Type

English design reformer
William Morris critiqued the
degradation of factory labor.
His Golden Type rejected
the sparkling, high-contrast
typefaces that dominated
commercial printing in
favor of the solemn density
and soft edges of Jenson’s
printed letters. Reproduced
with kind permission,
Letterform Archive.

1995 | Adobe Jenson

Designed by Robert Lorem Potterum dolor sit Quidditch, consectetue
Slimbach, Adobe Jenson
emphasizes the ribbonlike Hogwarts elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididun
strokes in Jenson’s letters.
The slanted bar of the e labore et magic potion aliqua. Ut enim ad min
extends slightly past the
curve. wand, quis nostrud exercitation Patronus char
laboris nisi ut aliquid ex ea potion concoction.

Lorem Potterum dolor sit Quidditch, consectetuer

2020 | Epica
This superfamily, designed
by Oscar Guerrero Cañizares,
includes numerous weights Hogwarts elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididun
in both serif and sans-serif
styles. The strokes feel labore et magic potion aliqua. Ut enim ad minim
closer to the Renaissance
than Adobe Jenson because
wand, quis nostrud exercitation Patronus cha
they have less contrast.
laboris nisi ut aliquid ex ea potion concoctio

thinking with type, third edition 13

ABSTRACTION Renaissance artists derived proportions from idealized hu-
man bodies. The French typographer Geofroy Tory published
a treatise in 1529 linking letterforms to human figures.+ A new
approach—distanced from the body—would unfold during the
Enlightenment, an age of scientific and philosophical inquiry.
A committee appointed by Louis XIV in France in 1693 set out
to construct roman letters against a finely meshed grid. Whereas
Tory’s diagrams were produced as woodcuts, the gridded draw-
ings of the Romain du Roi (King’s Roman) used engraving. This
Geofroy Tory wrote in 1529, process employs a tool called a graver to incise a copper plate.
“The cross-stroke covers the The typefaces derived from these diagrams were influenced by
man’s organ of generation,
to signify that Modesty and the sharp, linear quality of engraving as well as by the scientific
Chastity are required, before
all else, in those who seek
aspirations of the project.
acquaintance with well- Louis Barbedor, George Bickham, and other writing masters
shaped letters.” Reproduced
with kind permission, taught penmanship to the elite classes and disseminated their
Letterform Archive. work via engravings, whose swelling, serpentine lines capture the
motion of handwriting. Bickham’s book The Universal Penman
(1743) features crisp roman letters—each engraved as a unique
character—as well as flowing scripts.
In England, William Caslon and John Baskerville abandoned
the rigid nib of humanist calligraphy for the flexible steel pen and
the pointed quill of the new writing masters. Baskerville, himself
a master calligrapher, would have admired the thinly sculpted
The Romain du Roi (King’s lines printed in the engraved writing books. Because his typefac-
Roman) was designed for es were so sharp, contemporaries accused him of “blinding all the
the printing press of Louis
XIV in France in 1695, using a Readers in the Nation; for the strokes of your letters, being too thin
fine grid. Philippe Grandjean and narrow, hurt the Eye.”++ To heighten the detail and contrast of
created a typeface based on
the theoretical drawings. his typography, Baskerville made his own inks and hot-pressed
+ On the search for essential
his pages after printing.
letterforms since the At the turn of the nineteenth century, Giambattista Bodoni in
Renaissance, see Kate Brideau,
The Typographic Medium Italy and Firmin Didot in France amplified Baskerville’s precise
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
2022).
typographic style. Their typefaces have a strong vertical axis, se-
++ F. E. Pardoe, John Baskerville vere contrast between thick and thin strokes, and crisp, waferlike
of Birmingham: Letter-Founder
and Printer (London: Frederick serifs. This glittering new style launched an approach to typog-
Muller Limited, 1975), 68.
raphy unhinged from calligraphy.

14 HUMANS AND MACHINES

William Caslon (1692–1766)
produced typefaces in
England with crisp, upright
characters that appear,
as Robert Bringhurst has
written, “more modelled
and less written than
LFA EL

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| | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Renaissance forms.”+++
Caslon’s Specimen of
Printing Types, 1780s.
Reproduced with kind
permission, Letterform
Archive.

+++ Robert Bringhurst, The

Elements of Typographic Style
(Vancouver: Hartley and Marks,
1992, 1997), 127.

John Baskerville (1707–

1775) was an English printer
who aimed to surpass Caslon
by creating more vivid
contrast between thick and
thin elements. Baskerville’s
work was denounced by
many of his contemporaries
as amateur and extremist.
Bucolica, Georgica, et
Aeneis, 1757. Reproduced
with kind permission,
Letterform Archive.

Giambattista Bodoni (1740–

1830) created letters that
exhibit abrupt, unmodulated
contrast between thick and
thin elements, and razor-thin
serifs unsupported by curved
brackets. Similar typefaces
were designed in the same
period by François-Ambroise
Didot (1730–1804) in France
and Justus Erich Walbaum
(1768–1837) in Germany.
Manuale Tipografico,
Volume I, 1818. Reproduced
with kind permission,
Letterform Archive.

thinking with type, third edition 15

Father Sébastien Truchet helped create + See Jacques André and Denis Girou, “Father
the Romain du Roi. Drawing capitals on Truchet, the Typographic Point, the Romain du
a grid, he rejected letterforms inspired Roi, and Tilings,” TUGboat 20, no. 1 (1999): 8–14.
by handwriting. Instead, Truchet defined
typography as a branch of engraving.+
Manuscript (1692) reproduced with kind
permission, Letterform Archive.

16 HUMANS AND MACHINES

 |L|E|T|T|E|R|
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| | | | | | |
| | | | | | |

Marie Nicole Estienne (known as Veuve (Ordinary Printer to the King). This 1772
Hérissant or the Widow Hérissant) took type specimen bears her name and shows
over a printing press and type foundry the new taste for high-contrast letters
from her husband. Women in France could with thin, unbracketed serifs. She ran the
inherit businesses from their husbands. business until 1778. Reproduced with kind
Her status was imprimeur ordinaire du roi permission, Letterform Archive.

thinking with type, third edition 17

MONSTER FONTS By rejecting calligraphy and humanist proportions, Bodoni and
Didot unleashed a strange new world. Features such as serif and
stem, thick and thin strokes, and vertical and horizontal stress
could be freely manipulated. In search of a beauty both rational
and sublime, Bodoni and Didot had created a monster: an ab-
stract approach to letters set free from the body and hand.

antique clarendon latin/antique tuscan tuscan

Rob Roy Kelly studied the Mass production and mass consumption exploded in the
mechanized design strategies
that generated a spectacular
nineteenth century. The new medium of advertising demand-
variety of display letters in ed new styles of typography. Type designers grabbed attention
the nineteenth century. The
diagram above shows how by embellishing, engorging, stretching, and squeezing the body
the basic square serif form— parts of letters. Fonts of astonishing height, width, and depth
called Egyptian or slab—was
cut, pinched, pulled, and appeared—expanded, contracted, shadowed, inlined, fattened,
curled to spawn new species
of ornament. Serifs were
faceted, and floriated. Serifs abandoned their supporting role to
transformed from calligraphic become independent architectural structures. The traditional
end strokes into independent
geometric elements that stress of Latin letters canted in new directions.
could be freely adjusted. Lead, the material for casting metal type, is too soft to hold
its shape at large sizes under the pressure of the printing press.
Wood type, however, can be printed at gigantic scales. In 1834
the combined pantograph and router revolutionized wood-type
manufacture. The pantograph is a tracing device that, when
linked to a router for carving, allows the designer to make vari-
ants of one parent drawing, creating alphabets with different
+ On decorated types, see Rob proportions, weights, and details.+
Roy Kelly, American Wood
Type: 1828–1900, Notes on the This mechanized design method is divorced from calligraphy.
Evolution of Decorated and The search for perfect archetypes grounded in idealized human
Large Letters (New York: Da
Capo Press, 1969), Nicolete Gray, figures gave way to a new view of typography as an elastic sys-
A History of Lettering (Oxford:
Phaidon Press, 1986), and Ruari tem of structural features (weight, stress, stem, crossbars, serifs,
McLean, “An Examination of angles, curves, ascenders, descenders, and so on). The relation-
Egyptians,” in Texts on Type:
Critical Writings on Typography, ships among letters in a typeface became more important than
ed. Steven Heller and Philip
B. Meggs (New York: Allworth the identity of individual characters.
Press, 2001), 70–76.

18 HUMANS AND MACHINES