“Typography is the visual component of the written word”, a concept presented by Hope Amstrong in her course Typography for Developers Tutorial. It’s an art that comes alive when words take visual form, be it on screens, paper, posters, or signs. Letters carry the essence of the message and affect the reader’s comprehension and engagement.

Understanding the power and principles of typography is essential for anyone involved in visual communication. Whether you’re a graphic designer, a web developer, or just someone passionate about creating visually compelling content, mastering typography can improve the quality and effectiveness of your work.

To help you in developing your skills, we have selected the best online typography courses from over 150+ Typography courses available in our catalog. These courses, curated in this Best Courses Guides, range from beginner to advanced levels, covering various aspects of typography. From the fundamentals of typeface selection and layout design to advanced techniques in digital and print media.

Click on the shortcuts for more details:

• Our Top Picks
• What is the future of Typography?
• Stats
• Why You Should Trust Us
• How We Made Our Picks and Tested Them

Our Top Picks

What is the Future of Typography?

According to an article by Adobe Creative Cloud, the future of typography lies in variable fonts. They are a digital typeface option that allows endless variations in style within a single file. This allows designers more flexibility to control the weight and width of a typeface and create more complex compositions. This prediction is also endorsed by both AIGA and Monotype’s trend report.

The discussion on how to be responsive in a multitude of displays is not new. Back in 2016, an article in the Design Observer talked about the ever increasing challenges of predicting how your font will appear in different screen sizes and what variables the designer should consider beforehand: type size, line spacing, typeface, weights and breadths, contrast, and so on.

In a more philosophical and historical article from 2017, Robin Rendle explores the origins of typography and the printing press. He also expresses concerns about the implications of using standardized designs to prioritize accessibility and responsiveness over creating beautiful types on the web. According to him, this could be the end of our artistic expression in web design.

It becomes clear that the responsibilities of a professional typeface designer will be:

• To consider all those variables to make an accessible and responsive internet
• To bring along their own art and personality with unexpected combinations and new fonts that will illuminate our lives, create remarkable brands, and facilitate communication.

Related Guides

• Graphic Design
• Adobe Photoshop
• Figma
• Canva
• Adobe Illustrator

Hidden Gems

• Artificial Intelligence
• Tableau
• Public Speaking
• JavaScript
• Digital Art

Popular Guides

• Drawing
• Leadership
• Chess
• Blender
• American Sign Language (ASL)

Stats

• Combined, these courses have accrued over 1.17M enrollments and YouTube views
• 4 courses are free or free-to-audit and 6 courses are paid
• The most-represented course provider in the ranking is YouTube, with 4 courses
• 1 course is in Spanish with English subtitles, the rest are in English
• The Typography subject is followed by over 4.2K learners on Class Central.

Best Typography Fundamentals Course for UX Designers and Developers (freeCodeCamp)

Taught by a Treehouse instructor, Typography for Developers Tutorial is a free course that covers all you need to know to create good typography. It starts from the very basics of typography such as what typography is, lettering and fonts to topics such as typeface genres, scripts and font styles. You’ll also get the opportunity to complete your very own typography project using Figma.

In this course, you will learn:

• The fundamental differences between typography and lettering, typefaces and fonts
• How typography directly influences User Experience (UX)
• The elements that make up a typeface, including serifs and sans-serifs
• Techniques for creating typographic contrast and hierarchy
• The various genres and sub-genres of typefaces and how to choose the right one for your project
• The distinction between print and digital design typography
• Strategies for selecting and implementing typefaces in your designs

This course was made possible by a grant from TreeHouse, based on this paid course.

Best Typography Course for UI Designers (Udemy)

If you’ve designed websites or applications before and know how to use some design software like Figma then UI Design Bootcamp. Master Typography, Colour & Grids is for you. Typography is 95% of what we see on a web application, and this course will teach you exactly how you can use that to create great user experience (UX). Taught by Rob Sutcliffe who is a UI designer and developer with over 15 years of teaching experience.

In this course, you’ll learn:

• Craft compositions that are visually satisfying
• Develop a color palette tailored for UI design and understand how color values work
• Create a functional grid for modern web applications
• Grasp the history and principles of typography and how to apply them
• Select and pair typefaces to create a cohesive typographic system
• Enhance readability and visual hierarchy through typography
• Understand the physics of light and color interactions in various contexts
• Choose and integrate a visual language using photos, icons, and illustrations.

Best Visual Design Certificate program covering typography with Live Sessions and Mentoring (Noble Desktop)

If you prefer instructor-led learning, Noble Desktop’s UI Design Certificate offers real-time feedback and accountability that pre-recorded courses can’t match. Additionally, you get a NY State-Licensed Certificate.

What I find interesting is that this program runs both in-person (NYC campus) and online (Zoom). Even if you’re attending online, you’ll have individual attention and can see other students in the classroom. You’ll be able to interact with instructors, receive feedback, and ask questions during sessions. Plus, you’ll get access to class recordings and workbooks – pretty helpful for catching up if you miss a class or reviewing what you learned.

Key Benefits

• Small class sizes (8-15 students)
• Includes eight 1-on-1 mentoring sessions
• Earn a NY State-Licensed Certificate
• Free retake within one year.

Noble Desktop knows what they’re doing – they’ve been around for over three decades providing instruction with industry experts. So you can rest assured your mentorship will not be with someone who just finished the course. Don’t take my word for it – student reviews on Yelp and Google praise their practical approach and instructor quality.

What You’ll Learn

• Principles of visual design, focusing on interface design
• Adobe Creative Cloud design applications (Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign)
• Philosophies of graphic design, including lessons on typography
• Website and digital application design
• Figma for layout design.

Flexible Schedule Options

• 6 weeks full-time (weekdays)
• 5 months part-time (evenings or Sundays).

“Having some knowledge in visual design, I wasn’t sure if I needed this course but decided to take the leap. It was a fantastic course than gave me more insight toward visual guidelines, ideas and strategies that I have already put into place the day after class. I recommend this class to anyone looking to gain more knowledge in this field.” – Jemal McClary, Noble Desktop learner.

Best YouTube Series for Complete Beginners (Envato Tuts+)

Learn about fonts is a free course on typography that is focused on fonts. Rather than calling it a course, it’s better to call it a series of tutorial videos containing a lot of information regarding fonts – be it current or past font trends, how to create a font, fonts from different genres, how to use each font type, using InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator, and so on.

You’ll learn:

• The latest font trends and how to identify different font types
• Practical tips and tricks for using typography effectively in your designs
• How to create and upload your own fonts using industry-standard software
• The differences between typefaces and fonts, and the anatomy of letters
• Techniques for combining fonts and creating typographic effects in various design applications.

Best Fontself App Tutorial (The Futur Academy)

How To Make A Custom Font Using Fontself is a short free course that will teach you how to make your own custom font using Fontself, an easy-to-use font-making app. But that’s not all. On your way, you’ll learn the basics of typography such as terminology and anatomy, letter types, editing your design in Photoshop and Illustrator, and then finally use Fontself to create the font.

You’ll learn:

• The basics of typeface anatomy and terminology
• The challenges and reasons for designing your own font
• Insights into the work of historical and contemporary typeface design masters
• Practical steps to design and create a font using Fontself
• Tips on naming your guides and ensuring the uniqueness of your characters.

Best Glyphs App Course for Typeface Designers (Domestika)

If you want to create your own font from scratch, Diseño de una Tipografía digital de la A a la Z will cover every step in the process of creating a digital typeface. Taught in Spanish with subtitles in Spanish, English, and Portuguese, Juanjo López, a freelance designer, will guide you in creating your own font using Glyphs, a font-making app for Mac. As you move through the process, you’ll learn some general concepts of typography and also use Python to automate tasks.

You’ll learn:

• The fundamentals of typography and typeface design
• How to use Glyphs and Illustrator to draw and refine letters
• Techniques for spacing and kerning to ensure readability and aesthetic appeal
• How to implement OpenType features to enhance your typeface
• The process of creating a complete character set and organizing your work
• Practical tips and advice to streamline your design process.

Best Short Typography Fundamentals YouTube Tutorial (Design Cuts)

How To Master The Fundamentals Of Typography Design With Chris Do is a short free tutorial session that will show you how you can master the fundamentals of typography design within a matter of an hour. This session will be valuable to any beginner designer looking to learn about typography. By the end of this session, you’ll have the fundamental knowledge of typography such as contrast, scale, repetition and composition.

In this course, you will learn:

• The key elements of typography design: contrast, scale, repetition, and composition
• How to apply these elements to create designs that effectively communicate a message
• The importance of balance, spacing, and alignment in typography
• Insights into typography in Western culture and interline spacing
• Understanding type units, weight, width, and identifying font weaknesses
• Best practices for centering type and using upper and lower case
• How to properly design headers and footers with typography.

Best Short Typography Course for Intermediate Learners (Skillshare)

Customizing Type with Draplin: Creating Wordmarks That Work is a short, intermediate-level typography course that will show you how you can take ownership of your typography design by customizing type. You’ll follow along as the instructor creates several type treatments of his own to design merchandise by managing forms, in-between spaces and relationships of the letters.

You’ll learn:

• How to find and use typographic references to inspire your designs
• Techniques for kerning and tracking to perfect the spacing between characters
• Methods for customizing letterforms to create unique type treatments
• The process of sketching type from scratch and digitizing your sketches
• Preparing your design files for print and selecting promotional item vendors
• Bonus skills: adding texture to type and rebuilding typefaces from scratch.

Best Course for 3D Typography Artists (Domestika)

In 3D Typography: Playing with Color and Volume you will learn to create hyper-realistic 3D typographic animations using Illustrator, Photoshop, Cinema 4D and Redshift. You’ll learn the essentials of each software and create inflatable 3D types that you can apply to your future design and illustration projects.

In this course, you will learn:

• How to develop initial concepts and gather inspiration for your designs
• Techniques for creating and animating inflatable 3D type
• The process of adding lighting, textures, and dynamics to make your animations come to life
• Tips for refining your final image and preparing client-friendly files.

Best Typography Design Theory Course (Udemy)

Want to learn all about the theory behind typography? Then Graphic Design Theory – Typography is for you. You’ll cover critical principles and governing rules of typography, establish subtle hierarchy within your composition, and avoid typographic mistakes that disrupt your composition.

The instructor, Martin Perhiniak, brings over 20 years of experience as a freelance graphic designer and illustrator, and over 15 years of teaching graphic design. His expertise and recognition as one of the top Adobe instructors worldwide ensure that you’re learning from one of the best in the field.

In this course, you will learn to:

• Enhance readability and legibility for both print and web
• Use typography to amplify your message and improve the style of your text
• Select and pair typefaces effectively for various design projects
• Recognize the importance of font types and when to use them
• Pay attention to the details of leading, kerning, and measure in your designs
• Make confident decisions about text sizing for different mediums
• Understand font anatomy and the language of design professionals.

Why You Should Trust Us

Class Central, a Tripadvisor for online education, has helped 60 million learners find their next course. We’ve been combing through online education for more than a decade to aggregate a catalog of 200,000 online courses and 200,000 reviews written by our users. And we’re online learners ourselves: combined, the Class Central team has completed over 400 online courses, including online degrees.

You can explore the importance of typography for us at Class Central in this case study of the redesign of Class Central’s logo development process and history.

I (Archisha) am a Guided Project Instructor and a Beta Tester at Coursera, having tested many courses before they’re officially launched. I have taken over 50 online courses in various subjects. My experience as an online learner and teacher has given me some perspective on what to look for in an online course. I used my experience to evaluate each course in this list.

How We Made Our Picks and Tested Them

Trying to find “the best” can be daunting, even for those of us who live and breathe online courses. Here’s how we approached this task.

First, we combed through Class Central’s Catalog and the internet to find a variety of free and paid courses.

Second, when choosing courses, we considered the following factors:

• Instructor experience: we looked for certified instructors with extensive experience in typography.
• Course content: we looked for courses that covered a wide range of topics, from the basics to more advanced techniques.
• Student reviews: we read student reviews (when available) to get a sense of the quality of each course.

To evaluate each course, we watched some of the course videos and read the course syllabus. We also looked at the course’s rating and reviews on Class Central and course provider sites.

Ultimately, we used a combination of data and our own judgment to make these picks. We’re confident these recommendations will provide you with the knowledge to master typography.

Fabio has revised the research and the latest version of this article.