← DictionaryTypography
also called brand type, type system
The selection and use of typefaces, sizes, weights and spacing across a brand.
How your words are set, and the rules for setting them.
What It Is
You will find Typography in the Brand layer, alongside the rest of Identity. The canonical meaning is the selection and use of typefaces, sizes, weights and spacing across a brand.
It is an idea you reason with rather than a deliverable you hand over, so two teams can both hold it correctly and still apply it differently. Once it is defined that clearly, arguments about it usually stop.
How It's Used
Typography earns its keep in positioning conversations, identity decisions and the language a business commits to. It is usually discussed together with Typeface, Type Scale and Brand Guidelines. The practical test is whether a decision changes because of it.
Why It Matters
The cost of being vague about Typography shows up later, not today. When it is unclear, every later choice about message, design and channel is made on sand. It is worth pinning down before anyone builds on top of it.
It is a way of thinking, not a thing you can hold. How your words are set, and the rules for setting them.
Termshift™
How the meaning shifts depending on who is using it, and where.
Practitioners use Typography as shorthand and expect no explanation — the selection and use of typefaces, sizes, weights and spacing across a brand.
Outside the industry, most people would just say: how your words are set, and the rules for setting them.
The Bottom Line
If you only keep one thing about Typography: how your words are set, and the rules for setting them. Everything after that is detail.