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Typography

Typography (performed by a typographer) is the art of arranging letterforms in space in any medium (including the printed page, web pages, television, film, etc), usually using a recognised typeface, in order to achieve a combination of both aesthetic and functional goals.

While the term orthography usually refers to correct writing in general, typography includes:

Layout of blocks of text on the page, and throughout a publication;  Thoughtful selection and use of typefaces (fonts);  Correct use of emphasis;  Optional decoration such as initials;  Adhering to rules of typographical syntax, such as when to use a hyphen vs. a dash, or what glyphs to use for quotation marks, which varies greatly among different languages.

The term typography has broadened to include arranging text on the computer screen. When an overall layout specification has to handle a range of actual content – whether on screen or not – the term more often used is information design.

Note that type design is generally considered a separate activity from typography, although it can be considered a branch thereof.