I am joined by the lovely author and typography professor Indra Kupferschmid to chat about type classification and combining typefaces. We cover why the old systems don’t work, and touch on a font matrix. It’s a brilliant way by Indra, that tells you how to describe typefaces differently, and helps in making better decision in pairing them.

Besides that, Indra also shares:

➡️ how calligraphy taught her why letter forms change when using different writing tools.
➡️ that her student’s don’t feel that intimidated by combining fonts.
➡️ why popular typefaces like Roboto and Inter work so well and still might stick around for some years.

Talking points:

00:00 – Introduction
04:36 – Greeting to Indra Kupferschmid
05:36 – Avoid flipped apostrophes (should look like a 9)
08:01 – Consistent typography makes text easier to understand
11:44 – Categorizing typefaces
16:23 – About historic type classifications
20:07 – Why the old type classification models don’t work
22:31 – Filtering Fonts to make it easier to pick one
25:55 – Filtering based on features
27:54 – Terminology is the biggest problem, better describe what you see
28:59 – The Font Matrix
38:04 – Creating contrast
39:50 – Don’t use too light typefaces for body text
43:23 – Why are Roboto and Inter so popular for UI design?
48:25 – Why there are so little serif typefaces on screen?
53:59 – Are more typefaces now shown than images?
56:03 – Rapid Round of questions
58:32 – Goodbye

🤩 Pairing Typefaces Like a Pro, Online Course:
https://pimpmytype.com/course

🔗 Visuals, Links, and quotables to this episode:
https://pimpmytype.com/talk02