Whether it’s your first or fiftieth time working with type, uncertainty will always lurk in the background until you commit yourself to understand how type works.

You might be a brand new designer or a designer who’s been in the field for decades — everyone can elevate their comfort level with type.

In this exercise, the challenge is to break typographic characters down to a structural level. This process will make it significantly more comfortable for you to participate in the process of comparison and analysis of different typefaces.

There are both rules and opinions involved when you work with type. The better you understand the rules, the easier it will be to manage differing opinions.

Resources for review

Article/Video	Source/Author
Type Anatomy and Structure	New Pragmatic
Working with Type in Figma	New Pragmatic
Matthew Carter: My life in typefaces	Ted

Exercise

Length: Around an hour to complete

This exercise has two components. The Figma file provided here contains all the material you will need to complete the assignment.

Part one: Identify the highlighted attributes of the typeface displayed. Also, identify the underlying grid that is present.

Part two: Leveraging what you have learned from the resources above, pick a possible usage for each of the typefaces shown from the options provided. Include a few sentences to support your selections.

Once complete, update your Program Journal with links to the assets produced for this exercise. Post your Journal in the #Feedback-Loop channel for review.

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Up next Type Pairing