Agenda
- Typography lecture + Figma demo
- Break
- Text scavenger hunt: finish and share
- Shape tools & layout in Figma
Lecture: Typography, continued
We'll finish covering the core properties of typography — font families, size, kerning (spacing between letters), and line height — and this time, see how to actually control each of these in Figma: the font family dropdown, size, weight, line height, letter spacing, alignment, and color.
We'll also cover two things you'll need for the poster assignment:
- Choosing fonts: stick to one or two font families max. Pair one expressive/display font for a headline with one plain, easy-to-read font for body text — or just use different weights of the same font if you want to keep it simple.
- Building hierarchy: decide what you want people to read first, second, and third, and use size, weight, and color contrast to make that order obvious. Not everything on the page can be the loudest thing. We'll also look at the layers panel, which controls what's stacked on top of what — useful once text and shapes start to overlap.
Activity: Text scavenger hunt — finish and share
You'll get an additional 30 minutes to finish your text scavenger hunt from last class.
Then we'll spend 30 minutes sharing what we found as a class.
Shape tools & layout in Figma
A few more tools that'll help you build your poster:
- Shapes (rectangle, ellipse) — useful for color blocks or backgrounds behind your text
- Fill — the color or image inside a shape
- Opacity — how see-through something is
- Effects — drop shadow and blur are the two most useful for a poster
- Align & distribute — keep elements consistently lined up instead of eyeballing it
- Grouping — combine related elements (like text + its background shape) so they move and resize together
Assignment: Poster
Due Thursday, Oct 1
Make a poster. It can be for anything — an idea, a game, a product, a business.
Requirements
- 1080 × 1350 px (Instagram's portrait post size)
- Must contain at least 140 characters of text
- Can contain some kind of photography or imagery, but it's not required. The focus is on the text
Examples
- Remix an album cover
- Promote a concert
- Protest flyer
- Game or movie cover
Submit via Brightspace.