Experimental Typography: Top 10 Creative Typography Tutorials on Tuts+

If you want to push the boundaries of typography in your designs, get experimental with these creative typography tutorials. 

Typography design is the arrangement of letters. It gives text personality by considering the font’s style and appearance, the design’s structure, and the way it works with other design elements. Typography is typically in the remit of the graphic designer, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways for all content creators to harness its power in all types of design work.

Why is it important? Aside from being an essential design element, typography is proven to create tangible marketing results. For example, in website design, spot-on typography can help increase conversions.

Like other types of the ‘experimental’ genre, typography classified as such usually means designs that feature something slightly unexpected. This could be subtle differences in letter shapes, spacing, or heights or incorporating design elements like color, unusual lines, or animation for added sparkle.

Making waves is never really out of style, and it’s increasingly important to stand out and be bold with your designs. This is where experimental typography comes into its own – creating interest and impact as it lends your brand message a surprising twist.

For beginners, the best place to start is with tutorials. Tuts+ is a learning hub full of free tutorials. So if you’re ready to throw the rules out the window and get started with experimental typography, we’ve picked out 10 of the best typography tutorials to try.

Start from the beginning with this tutorial, which takes you through the premise of expressive typography alongside examples and ideas on how to use it for your projects. You’ll come out of it well-versed in different font contrasts, weights, and letter spacing – and ready to put your knowledge to use. 

This is the video tutorial for you if you want to use show stopping typography in a poster. You’ll start with creating your document before stepping through adding the background and all-important text before exporting it for print and web.

Spring is around the corner, and to get into the spirit, look no further than this fun, floral text effect tutorial for Photoshop. You’ll learn to use layers to create a bold typography set in an elegant, textural design.

For those who want a taste of what’s possible, why not give yourself a suite of great options? In this tutorial, you’ll look at 41 new and trending fonts. 

If that wasn’t enough, this tutorial goes even further with 50 creative options for typography, along with examples and ideas on how to incorporate these fonts into your work. You won’t leave short of inspiration.

For those designers who welcome chaos, try harnessing the power of messy fonts with this tutorial. Think of scribble fonts and handwritten styles, and see how they can work in these 36 examples.

This tutorial is for those ready to be at the forefront of a new trend that takes the classic ’90s aesthetic and mixes it with Brutalist design elements. If you’re a rule breaker, look no further than this tutorial. 

If animated text is something you’ve wanted to try out, a tutorial is the perfect setting to give it a go. This tutorial combines a top selection of kinetic After Effects text animation templates, taking the guesswork out.

It’s not necessarily what you’re thinking – a grotesque font is a sans-serif style with a particularly sharp edge. While the historical names sound less-than-appealing, grotesque fonts are versatile, clean, and popular. Try them for yourself with this tutorial.

Last up is a tutorial that will keep you on trend and even ahead of the curve. A round-up of the best typography for the year to come, this is the essential guide to typefaces for 2023 – from sci-fi influence to retro styles. 

And that’s it! If you’ve enjoyed these tutorials, do you fancy trying your hand at creating a font? Look at How to Make a Font: 10+ Typography and Font Tutorials for Beginners. 

Or, for thousands of tutorials on various topics, head to Envato Tuts+ and start browsing. Once you’re ready to apply your new skills, a subscription to Envato Elements gives you instant access to all the assets you could need for your projects – from images and audio to templates and fonts.