Whether online, in print, or on the side of a spaceship, typography is the primary vehicle we use as designers to communicate our message. When we get it right, it’s powerful. And to do it well, we need to strike the balance between beauty and utility—and then disappear into the night.

Typography is one of your greatest design assets. It’s not visual decoration or something that gets added at the end to spice up a design. Good typography gives spirit to words and is a potent mechanism to inform and delight.

It doesn’t matter how well-considered your layout is, how wonderful your website’s interactions, code, colors, imagery, or writing are. If your type is bad, the design fails.

Jason Santa Maria.