So You Want to be a Designer? A Story + 5 Typography Designs to Get You Started

Home » So You Want to be a Designer? A Story + 5 Typography Designs to Get You Started

11 Jun Typography | Comments

I am my fourteen-year-old self’s dream. There is a little known secret which I am about to speak to the interwebs: I am a geek. In elementary school, my mom trained me to go to the public library with her by leading me to the science non-fiction section where I would spend my time browsing the stacks. My favorite books were the ones filled with do-it-yourself experiments. I routinely made my own carbon paper (and then pretended I was a waiter… to this day I have never been a real waiter. Missed calling?).

A series of chemical concoctions, electrical creations, and mechanical do-hickies later, I became the family’s go-to computer guy and eventually I succeeded in convincing my parents to get me my own computer. And that is when it began. I spent more nights than I can count awake until 3 or 4 in the morning, two-liter of Pepsi by my side staring into the computer monitor. I taught myself Photoshop, Flash, HTML, and video editing. I made bookmarks, CD covers, computer desktop backgrounds, websites, and photo-video slideshows. Most of my creations never made it out of the basement and now I think a good majority of them are lost to a hard drive in a dump somewhere. I was, for some reason, ashamed of my late-night hobby and rarely spoke of it.

It is amazing that I had the gumption to apply to film school. I was accepted to the University of Southern California to study production. It is even more remarkable that I make a living in web development, graphic design, and film/video production. If my fourteen-year old, over-caffeinated self could see me now! My inner geek is on display for the world to see.

In the early days of my all-night computer binges, I taught myself by seeking out works I liked and then replicating them or using them as inspiration. Before I knew how to manipulate images, airbrush photos, or edit movies, I started simply with text. I know it’s called Photoshop but for the first year, I think I used it exclusively for text. If you don’t have Photoshop, Gimp is an open source alternative, and you can even get away with using text boxes and Word or Publisher… or even by writing out the words with pencil and paper.

So if you’re looking to get started with design and don’t know where to begin, you can always start with typography. Here are some of my favorite typography designs in print and video.