Typography can be defined as the art of correctly arranging the material to be printed according to a specific purpose: that of placing the letters, distributing the space and organizing the type for the purpose of giving the reader the greatest help in understanding the text. Typography is an effective means of achieving an essentially utilitarian end, and only accidentally aesthetic, since the visual enjoyment of forms rarely constitutes the main aspiration of the reader (Morison, 1998: 95).

Jan Tschichold, one of the most important and influential typographers of the 20th century, was the driving force behind the “New Typography” (Die Neue Typographie), which originated in Germany in the 1920s and proclaimed the same “functionalist” principles of Bauhaus regarding clarity and the belief that “form follows function”. Tschichold also understood typography in this global sense, which he refers to as the “art of writing”: “good fonts, and the correct arrangement: these are the two pillars of the entire art of writing” (Tschichold, 2002: 25).

In addition to the composition and choice of elements (the overall design), when we consider typography we also refer to the text composition system prior to the mechanical or digital procedures used in the present day, as well as a printing system, generally used until its current replacement by the technology known as offset. Typographic printing is direct, where the mould or plate in relief is transferred flat against plane to the support (paper, etc.), while offset is an indirect printing system (from a mould or plate to a rubber cylinder and from there to the final support material), as well as planographic (based on xylography). In the latter, in other words, there is no relief on the plates (Bann, 2008).

Thirdly, typography is also the art of designing typefaces, or fonts, exclusively. Strictly speaking, a typographer is a person who creates alphabets, who draws them by previously developing hand sketches. Before digital technology, the typographer engraved type metal pieces from which matrices were later made, and which resulted in the famous moveable lead type. Now this is accomplished by typeset editing software that creates computer files in which each of the fonts and their variants are encoded. The Manual de la Imprenta Española (The Spanish Printing Manual), or Arte de la Imprenta (The Art of Printing) by Antonio Serra y Oliveres, published in Madrid in 1852, distinguishes between the “printer”, who would be “the one who exercises the science or art of printing”, in the general sense expounded by Morison, and the “typographer”, a person who “carries out experiments or seeks to perfect the art of printing” (Serra y Oliveres, 1852: 266), in which we can include the designer or creator of new printing typefaces. The latter term is not currently used, and to distinguish the features of these two denominations, we use the term “typographer” for the person who designs new fonts, or new typefaces -which is the fourth aspect referred to by the term as a synonym for a font type - and “graphic designer” for those who work with typography and compose texts according to the semantic and pragmatic values involved in choosing a font type, or typeface, for use in a particular publication.

Finally, as we have just mentioned, the term typography is currently used in a way that is perhaps not entirely conventional, but is used more and more frequently to refer to the set of fonts in a publication, and even to a particular typeface. Therefore, we use a specific “typography” instead of a “typeface”. This use of typography assimilated to typeface is prevalent among professionals in a way that is widely accepted. This is how Laura González and Pedro Pérez Cuadrado understand it in their Principios básicos sobre diseño periodístico (Basic Principles of Journalistic Design): “The first step in graphic design –whatever kind it may be: book, magazine, newspaper, poster, brochure or web page– is the choice of typeface we intend to use in communicating the message” (2001: 77).