An Intro to Typography 

you are too clever! I'm having too much fun snooping all over your channel!

I like how fast this is. My ADHD is pleased.

From one typography nerd to another: Thank you for making this video. I love your energy! I can’t wait to show my boyfriend, he will get a kick out of my discovering another person who is super passionate about typography.

Wow this is such a creative + educational way of learning these terms! You've done an amazing job. You're an excellent teacher :)

My school uses this video

Hiiiiii!!!! can't believe this was uploaded 10 years ago!! hope you're still active these days!! Time goes so fast! i believe the time i got into this *precious* video was about 6.5 years ago. i remember myself being a 6th grade kid, on her summer vacation, just found out the term 'typography' and went crazy about it. to found this gold video again, i had to scroll down to my 3000+ 'Liked videos' playlist, so glad i found you again Karen the impression of a girl in her glasses being really passionate about typo and her high quality colorful video is rl in my heart (feel so nostalgic now) i am now a freshman of an art student, and when we searched 'typography' on RU-vid, your video won't appear, and that's a great loss for kids these days who want to learn 'Typo'...

I just looked up Papyrus to see what it was, finally. I can't see myself using it for anything. I can now say I know next to nothing about typography, rather than nothing! I may not be into it but I can appreciate the work done by those who are. Thanks for this, Karen.

she's pointing out typography, but completely ignored the graffiti hand styles at 1:01, hand styles are the evolution of typography. besides that good video, I appreciate the amount of work that went into this.

This video was brilliantly made. Also perfectly educational.

Fun and concise contribution to the world of typography education! I believe the flush left/right are reversed at 1:31 which caught me off guard a bit, but overall great job obviously and thanks for another wonderful video!

I think your vidoes rock...says an over the hill (40+) typography lover. Love watching. One word on today's it would be hard for a beginner to really understand the difference between kerning and tracking. I know you try to keep it short but.... You still do an amazing job. Thanks much!!

You know what? this video is pretty good. I've rewatched it a few times now but I really don't feel like it teaches the viewer very well. It's too fast pace and doesn't expand on alot of topics topics. For an example, in the first lesson on lesson one, it would have been nice to hear how ascenders work and what other letters they are common in. But then, before you know it, Lesson 3 has already begun at 1:03

I am in my 4th semester at IADT online for the Graphics Design program and the videos you post are of course well informative for my learning. Currently I am in a Typography class and this video is very helpful. Also, I sent this video link to my instructor informing her that it can be helpful in her future classes. Thanks for uploading all these videos.

Good tip on the reading material. Thinking With Type is a FANTASTIC book.

In our daily writing, actually, we didn`t pay much attention on typography. We just use Microsoft word, and choose whatever looks comfortable. As I worked with our assignment leader who is a design major student, she is very sensitive with typography. In fact, her suggestions are always right, the document which is formatted by her looks perfect. This video I watched for many times. I watched other your videos as well in order to help me learn more about typography and related topics such as colors, logos. You present the topics in an interesting way, and you can appeal my attention. At first I only want to learn some about typography, but in fact I almost watched all your videos. As you gave the tour, I started to have a look at the logos, titles I saw in streets, some were good, some were terrible. In a word, a good design do have a big effect! I will try to present typography in a simple and interesting way like you.

"Be careful of rivers in justified text. You don't want to be able to sail a boat through your words." Love the quote! :)

Typography confessionals: In seventh grade Comic Sans was my default AIM font. Glad I got that off my chest; now I won't feel guilty when I watch your videos. Also, this was really awesome!

p.s. the fact that the annotations at the end of this video still say 'enter your text here' and aren't properly aligned over the video clips is either sheer irony or sheer brilliance.

@WoahGreeceLightning Thanks, I'm glad my video served its purpose :)

So this morning I learned the importance of grammar from John Green and the basics of typography from you. What an awesome way to start a day. :)

@homelessxcat Thanks, I'm glad you liked it!

Karen you are so Awesome! I am a first year Communication en Design student from the Netherlands. My last classes and exam where about print, wachting your video's made everything so much more clear to me. Today I got my grade back and it was a B. With this I got my certificate for next year. I can't thank you enough thank you! If you need ispiration for more? Maybe you can do something about paper, wat paper you use when and about types of print: offset, flexo, like that :)

@JeffreyReu I gave the link for the second edition which should be out soon. If you don't want to wait though, the first edition is great too.

you just covered my entire typography class i took last semester at college.

I really liked how you went around town to point out some different types of lettering! I will soon be tackling the decision of what fonts to use for a personal website I'll be making for grad school. I've already considered that buying a font face would be really neat. : ) ~ Jethro.

Thank you!!! I have a "E-zine" (Electronic Magazine) class at my high school and this video is indispensable!! Keep up the good work!

Just went to a Jostens Spring Fling and this was a featured video to explain the various types of fonts we could use on our yearbook! I was so excited to see Karen, DFTBA!

I actually find this really interesting. I know practically nothing about typography, so this was very informative! I'll probably still have to watch it again to remember these terms, but I will! And it will be nice to see these words and actually know to what they are referring in the future. :D

@pilocrates haha, that's basically lesson one. But there's so much more to it than what I got to here.

@xperpetualmotion My ignorance had me expecting something on the level of a book review of the windows 98 operating manual. (outdated and bland(after all the world has been typing for a long time)) I've watched it 4 times through so far. I like that the pace is too fast for me to keep up with without pausing to read the captions. Your passion/nerdness is inspiring.

It really helped a lot :) I have a typography presentation this week, and glad that I found this video! Thanks

YESSSSSS! I'm actually kind of obsessed with typography.

*A yearbook advisor recommended this video to me to help me choose fonts. I've also seen it at a large-scale yearbook convention. I'm so glad I found you for myself.

There is one single scenario where in I feel it's okay to use Papyrus. And that's when handing in an essay about Egypt - but it has to be done properly. After it's printed, smear it over with coffee, and then bake it in the oven at low heat, until it's browned up and crispy. Then hand it in. But that's really the only scenario where it's mildly okay to use either of the two fonts..

That moment you realise you're not the only person on this planet that his heart skips a beat when someone starts talking about typography... wow, that does sound sad...

We watched your video in publications class! I was so happy!

Wow, you put so much information into only 3 minutes. I was expecting something longer since you vlog often and tend to go on and on about stuff like this. I liked how you found examples in real life instead of mentioning a ton of font names. Nonetheless this was a very interesting video on typography. (:

The part where you walked around the city to show about typography was excellent

I'm taking typography this semester and Ive been taking down notes from your videos. Very helpful

Squee! I feel very accomplished that I was able to follow this nerdy fast-talking video of amazingness. Loooved all the pretty colours~ This video shall be my reference if I ever get lost in a sea of Illustrator woes. Thanks Karen!

Whoa, what? *watches again* Good thing I'm going to study this (graphich design) next year, I recognise some things that I picked up along the way, but I'm a total n00b when it comes to typography. Many thanks for the book recommendations, I have been looking for a good book about typography but didn't know which ones were actually good :) Now I can do some homework BEFORE school starts and I won't be the dumbest person in the class :)

@ModernApple Yay, I'm so happy to hear that!

So great to have such a simple video explaining typography.

@TravelJoe2010 Not really, I actually found them all within about a five block radius.

Karen, I just watched this TWICE it's that brilliant.

@JaseSheehan Thank you so much for taking the time to watch my video! I really appreciate it!

Watching this as review for my Fundamentals midterm tomorrow. I love it when procrastination turns out to be productive.

Informative video is informative. "You don't want a shape in your rag" has got to be the quote of the night.

And just in case you are counting the comments on the video angle....I LOVE IT

I am a complete noob when it comes to design and typography, so I'm really glad you made this video!! Learning the basics of typography seems to be very important, and I hadn't thought about it until you started talking about it!!! I'd be very interested in more of these type of videos. Also, you may have answered this before, but why is it a complete typography crime to use comic sans and papyrus?

also forgot to mention that the whole letter spotting black and white things were really well done.

@NavarrB Which purpose, comic book lettering? There are far more aesthetically pleasing choices out there, and most people misuse it.

@dangerouslytalented Yup, since it comes from the strips of lead they would use to separate metal type.

@peevedmusic Thank you so much. That means a lot coming from you since I absolutely love your music :)

@kateribethrose Sprinkles are just a win in themselves.

i have this theory that most if not all designers once loved using comic sans once they discovered the font selections. i mean it's a nice looking font at first. i figure to learn visually you must discover and love the fonts you like, whether or not you receive info of them being overused. then, as time goes by, you may tend to see them a lot or get bored of them. i don't really like the advice of not using papyrus or comic sans if you're not aware visually why you shouldn't.

that was so much more awesome than i expected. great tour and use of interestingness. I will favorite and watch again.

@xperpetualmotion oh boy i cant wait! well i should probably watch this one a few more times to make sure i've mastered Lesson 1.

Wonderful. I just went over all of this with my first year high school graphic design students, they all think I'm a font nerd, but they will become one too, soon! Thanks for the vid. We just finished talking about copyright, and i know this is on youtube, but so can I show you video to my class?

thank you for this intro, my 11 years old and I have learnt something from you. You're great!

This is probably your best video. Thanks.

@FandomUnited Isn't that book great? The guy who wrote it actually teaches at my school :)

@SpoonsRLikForks So what did you pay attention to? O.o

Karen! I loved this video so much, you've even sparked an interest in typography amongst me and my fellow xperpetualmotion watchers!

ugh, i had to watch this twice to get it =p but thanks for making it. ever since your last typography video, i've been a lot more interested in fonts and stuff. i don't think i'm going to go into graphic design, but it always helps to know at least a little bit about a lot of things. at least that's what my drama teacher told me...

i wasn't sure what this video was about, but then wheezy told me it was great with sprinkles so I loved it =D

@Kianayala haha, well I think we all made really awful typographic choices in seventh grade. I think i used to use Ravie *shudder*

@theoriginaledi haha, I probably do. I'm the worst at remembering which way is which.

your videos are getting more and more awesome! keep up the great work!

Thanks for doing this video. Its been nearly 20 years since I did DTP on a mac when it was 'the next big thing'. If I could only remember what Widows and Orphans are then I might be able to get back into it.

Awesome video! I learned lots! I promise to be good and never use the forbidden comic sans or papyrus. I loved how you used different examples on the street to teach us about it. Will you make more videos about this? I'll have to watch your two others later.

@iamthealterego Thanks, and I will definitely be making some follow-up videos!

@Cajuncavalier haha yeah, it ended up going by really fast.

hello karen! my first comment on youtube ever! well I really like your style! pretty funny and i am now being more and more interested in typography^^ and i went to the font shop to check fonts out as you said! what i discovered was some 'creative' font that i could not even decode it, like ''VLNL Dream Meal Right OT'' hahaha!! check it out! it's like clouds appear in your head while you 'read' them! anyway i'll keep watching your awesome video to learn more:-) support support!

STOP! you are such a Genius! Very creative! Great visual explanations! Thank you a lot!

No words to explain... love it

You must have been all over town to point out the various versions of type lol. When you said "Comic Sans", I heard demonic voices laughing and saw red, swirling visions. LOL.

@fizzylimon Was that bad video making on my part or a clever strategy to get people to watch it multiple times? :O

@alylurker Those don't sound like very good classes then...but I'm glad you're learning here :)

@emmfan09 Thanks Ryan! I'm actually planning on making a second one of these so I'll talk about widows and orphans there.

As far as I'm concerned, you can NEVER BE TOO EXCITED! Especially someone as cute as you.

@Olympics1001 What are you confused about?

@thecolormaria Seriously? It doesn't sound like a very thorough class then...

@mandereeze3 Well it's not for everyone, but I'm glad you're enjoying it!

aaaaand subscribed, i totaly wanted this, thank you so much :)

@UnculturedProject Thanks Shawn!

This was brilliant and so well done. I loved your typography field trip. You've jammed so much useful graphic design information into three minutes, and it was digestible and entertaining. I totally own that John Kane book! Have you ever read Stop Stealing Sheep and Find Out How Type Works by Erik Spiekermann?

@DigitalCable I wish I could say nay, but I use them all the time since I'm not nearly creative enough in my writing :P

i just graduated with a civil engineering degree but im really starting to like graphic design we shall see what a graphic design degree from the university of youtube will take me lol. stay awesome lol

This went by CRAZY fast! I felt like I had to pause the video to catch it all. Really great video editing though. So far my plans for college involve a Major in Creative Writing and minors in English and Typography(And possibly Drama too but that isn't exactly relevant) And I found this video very amazing.

my design teacher showed this in our class today great video :D

@notmyforte That is such a tragedy. What would someone make that?

My typography teacher showed us this video and many others from her. My class doesn't like her lol, they're like "not again..." and "wait, wtf is going on!?!?" lmao

you forgot "Mistral" -- makes the "eew" trifecta complete!! good job

I'm a librarian at a tiny little country library where we're responsible to make our own promotional materials, and I have one coworker who, since we work in the children's department, is determined to use Comic Sans for *everything*! Drives me crazy!!!!

Excellent Karen!

This was really interesting and pretty. Sometimes I felt like the information was flying by, though. As an educator, I was like WHOAH there let the facts sink in! But it was still really good and if people are willing to pause and re-watch they'll get it :) Makes me want to do another Music for Muggles!

Totally didn't get the distinction between tracking and kerning. I guess I'll have to look it up.

"Don't let me catch you using Papyrus or Comic Sans!" OMG I SAY THE SAME THING

Okay, so just to summarize this lesson...you're basically saying that -- whenever possible -- we should use zaph chancery or brush script...but not unless we're going to put it in all caps and on an arc, right? I'm kidding (of course). I've enjoyed your videos so far, thanks! :)