I’ve seen a lot of designs lately experimenting with large type, and with the right choice of font, contrast and whitespace they look great.
Check out this inspirational list of typographic based designs that I’ve put together.
1. Pallian Creative
2. Legistyles
3. Ben Lind
4. Made by Cool
5. Lorem Ipsum
6. Typechart
7. Elysium Burns
8. Crowley Webb
9. Alpha Multimedia
10. Astheria
11. The Typographic Desk Reference
12. Giant Creative
13. I Love Typography
14. FL2
15. Futon Media
Further reading
Any good ones I missed?
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Written with love from Lee Munroe.
March 23rd 2009
Chris Colhoun says:
Some Beautiful sites, I really love good typography on the web.
I tried to design http://chriscolhoun.com around typography, But using CSS Code rather than images. Different users may get different experiences but ideally on a Mac using Firefox or Safari you should get the richest view of the site!
Great post Lee
March 23rd 2009
itsdavidhughes says:
Legistyles is stunning.
http://live.squarespace.com/ Would’ve made my list (if I had one)
March 23rd 2009
Christopher Murphy says:
Some lovely sites there. Astheria in particular is very, very nice. Proof that some well-crafted typography, an understanding of the grid and a little white space can go a long way. (I seem to recall that combination mentioned in a lecture…!)
March 23rd 2009
krys locksman says:
Very nice list here and I couldn’t agree more! My favorites are Elysium and Giant, love the bold and flavorful palettes.
March 23rd 2009
Lee says:
@itsdavidhughes: That is very cool. I like the way they’ve done their life streams
@Christopher: You’re right, all the sort of cool stuff one can expect from IMD and the Multidisciplinary Design Masters
@krys: Thanks Krys!
March 23rd 2009
Chris Wallace says:
Rockin’. Would’ve loved to see a few more. I like Design Workplan.
March 23rd 2009
lewro says:
Nice list! My favourite is Typechart. Thanks for sharing Lee.
March 23rd 2009
itsdavidhughes says:
@Chris Loving Design Workplan.
Of course neither of us are forgetting The Grid System right?
March 24th 2009
insic says:
awesome!
March 24th 2009
Sander says:
@Chris Wallace, thanks for mention, appreciated!
Great list Lee, good luck with your website.
March 24th 2009
Heather says:
I’ve always loved the look of Astheria and, of course, I love typography has always been a favorite, but found some new ones thanks to this post! Thanks for sharing!
March 24th 2009
Webmasterish says:
I like!
March 26th 2009
JWG says:
Nice collection!
March 28th 2009
Melinda says:
I agree! They do look great and have an entirely different and clean feel to them. These site examples remind me of the print work that I do as far as experimentation with larger type and whitespace. I’m very fond of clean, crisp design whether it be web or print. I suppose I’m just in love with the written word, so type experimentation in any form catches my attention. =)
Also, I took a look at your work as well and I do have to say that you have a beautiful portfolio. It’s definitely one of the strongest that I’ve seen and it shows a vast range of your skills. I would be very proud if I were you! =)
March 29th 2009
Macarne says:
Wow looks so great, what just a few nice letters can do !
March 29th 2009
CSSJockey says:
Amazing websites, this list will keep me busy for sometime for sure.
March 30th 2009
Stephen Costello says:
Cool sites Lee, #14 is so simple but looks great. I’m hopefully gonna redevelop my own site along those lines.
April 6th 2009
Creamy CSS Showcase says:
Great inspirational list! Thanks for post
April 6th 2009
Ed Hardy says:
Great collection of really impressing and inspiring pages. Thank you!
April 7th 2009
AlfredN says:
Astheria and Ben Li’s websites are my favorite of the bunch; nice one +bookmarked.
April 10th 2009
chu says:
Some typographically inspired design at http://artrocker.com also.
April 11th 2009
Lee says:
@Melinda: Yeah I definitely think there’s inspiration there from print work, which is great to see
@Stephen: look forward to seeing the new site
Thanks for all the comments and it’s my pleasure to share some creative work
April 14th 2009
Jorge says:
Great typo sites, we love big typographies, maybe our website looks fine too
April 16th 2009
Ben Tyers says:
Interesting stuff
June 15th 2009
Ioanis says:
Fantastic list! Particularly like Ben Lind’s website.
June 17th 2009
Freelance Web Designer says:
that was really beautiful collection ,
I love typography , and I like to apply it to my designs always.
June 20th 2009
Jeremy says:
Oh noes! The last example uses a boring apostrophe (‘), which is U+0027. Real typographists use the proper apostrophe (’), which is U+2019.
According to Unicode, U+2019 is “the preferred character to use for apostrophe”.
June 20th 2009
Lee says:
@Jorge: Nice site, loving the handdrawn look
@Jeremy: Interesting point, didn’t know that. What’s the difference then when inputting using your keyboard?
June 20th 2009
Jeremy says:
Well, all keyboards that I’m aware of use the normal apostrophe (U+0027) when you hit the button. (Except I believe the Spanish keyboard does another apostrophe that is different yet again.)
It’s normally something that would be picked up by your software. I know OpenOffice.org and MS Word will convert a normal apostrophe to a curly apostrophe if smart quotes are turned on, and WordPress also does this automatically (it calls it “texturizing”).
Most people that I see coding curly quotes in will enter the HTML entity manually. I don’t know the entity number off by heart, but you can find it in charmap (in GNOME’s charmap, at least).
July 2nd 2009
Alisa Rogers says:
I am very thankful to you for provide me this valuable resource.
July 15th 2009
stsoftware says:
it so beautiful, thank it is new idea
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September 17th 2009
Dre says:
Thanks for this ideas
October 3rd 2009
Kate says:
I Liked Made by Cool. It proves that great ideas – are simple.
January 6th 2010
shellie says:
nice collection. I too am a big fan of whitespace, it often speaks the loudest.
February 4th 2010
ทีวีออนไลน์ says:
it so beautiful, thank it is new idea.
March 19th 2010
leah says:
thanks for this list. they are all very good and inspiring. i enjoy type design so much… more than anything. really. lol