Module 5 • Lesson 1🔠 Type & Hierarchy
Welcome to design. Module 5 builds a poster, and a poster lives or dies by its type. The good news: making text look professional is less about taste and more about a few rules you can learn today. The most important one is hierarchy, deciding what a viewer reads first, second, and third.
📚 What You'll Learn
By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:
- Set and edit text with the Type tool (point type vs paragraph type)
- Build a clear visual hierarchy with size, weight, and spacing
- Control tracking, kerning, and leading in the Character panel
- Curve text along a shape with type on a path
⏱️ Estimated Time: 50 minutes
🎯 Project: Turn a flat, cramped block of poster text into a clear, confident layout with real hierarchy.
In This Lesson
🔤 The Goal: Read Me in This Order
Same words, same colors. On the right, every line is the same size, so nothing leads and your eye wanders. On the left, hierarchy tells you exactly where to look first. Drag the handle:
🧠 Mental Model: Type Has a Job
Beginners treat text as "the words I need to include." Designers treat each piece of text as having a job: this one grabs attention, that one gives the essential detail, this one is the fine print. Once every line knows its job, you size and space it accordingly, and hierarchy appears almost by itself.
Three tools do almost all of the work:
- Size. Bigger reads first. The single most powerful signal.
- Weight. Bold pulls forward, light recedes. Contrast in weight creates rhythm.
- Space. Room around a line makes it feel important; crowding makes it feel like fine print.
🧠 Why this is a relief, not a burden
"I have no eye for design" almost always means "nobody told me the rules." Hierarchy is a rule, not a talent. Learn three or four of these and your work jumps from amateur to clearly-designed, no natural gift required.
🎛️ The Character Panel
Fine control over type lives in the Character panel (Window ▸ Character). Three settings matter most, shown here as a diagram rather than a live screenshot:
| Term | What it spaces | Reach for it when… |
|---|---|---|
| Leading | Between lines of text | A headline's lines drift apart or crash together |
| Tracking | Evenly across a run of letters | Small caps or a label needs to breathe |
| Kerning | Between one specific pair | Two big display letters look awkwardly gapped |
➰ Type on a Path
Text does not have to sit on a straight line. Click a path or a shape's edge with the Type tool and your text flows along it: a badge, an arch over a title, a curve around a logo. Here is text riding a curve, the same feature you will use on the poster:
💡 How to do it
Draw a path with the Pen or a Shape tool (Module 5.2), hover the Type tool over the path until the cursor shows a wavy line, click, and type. Drag with the Path Selection tool to slide the text along the curve or flip it to the other side.
🛠️ Guided Build: Fix the Hierarchy
Create a new document (a poster size like 18 × 24 inches at 150 ppi is fine) with a dark background. Save as poster-working.psd. You will keep building this file across Module 5.
Step 1: Get the words down · 5 min
- With the Type tool (T), click once and type your event's name, then add each other line as its own type layer. Do not fuss over looks yet; just get all the words in.
- Point type (a single click) is for short display lines. Paragraph type (click and drag a box) is for blocks of body text.
Step 2: Assign every line a job · 6 min
- Decide the reading order: what is 1st, 2nd, 3rd? Usually the event name is 1st, the date and place 2nd, the details 3rd, the fine print last.
- Size them to match that order. Make the 1st line boldly bigger than everything else. Do not be timid; weak hierarchy is the most common beginner mistake.
Step 3: Space it to breathe · 8 min
- Open the Character panel. Tighten the leading on your big title so its lines feel like one unit.
- Add positive tracking to any small caps or labels so they feel deliberate rather than cramped.
- Use the Move tool and the align guides to give each group generous space. White space is not wasted space; it is what makes the important things feel important.
⚠️ Two fonts, maximum
New designers reach for five fonts. Pros use one or two. Pick one characterful display font for the title and one clean font for everything else. Contrast through size and weight, not through a font circus.
Step 4: One accent, and a curve · 6 min
- Choose a single accent color and apply it to just the most important line, or to a small "tickets" badge. One accent focuses the eye; three accents scatter it.
- Add a small piece of type on a path for flair: an arc over the title or a circular badge stamp. Keep it subtle.
✅ Project Completion Checklist
- ☐ Every line is its own type layer with a clear job
- ☐ The 1st line is boldly bigger than the rest
- ☐ Leading and tracking are set deliberately, not left default
- ☐ Only one or two fonts, and one accent color
- ☐ At least one element uses type on a path
🧗 Now You: Solo Variation
🌟 Your challenge
- Set the same poster text three ways, changing only size and spacing. Notice you can create three distinct moods with one font and no color.
- Recreate the hierarchy of a poster or album cover you admire. Copying to learn is how every designer starts.
- Curve a tagline into a full circle around a logo using type on a path.
Going further: set the same headline in a serif, a sans, and a script. Feel how the font's personality changes the message before a single word is read.
🍳 Recipe Card: Type Hierarchy
Confident type in five moves
- Type every line as its own layer (T)
- Assign a reading order: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, fine print
- Size boldly to match that order (big 1st line)
- Character panel: tighten leading on titles, add tracking to small caps
- One or two fonts, one accent color, optional type on a path
Mantra: size, weight, space. Decide what to read first.
📓 Learning Journal
Add to your journal after this lesson:
- Key concepts you learned
- Techniques that clicked for you
- Questions or confusion points to revisit
- Ideas you want to try
- Your progress and feelings about learning this
✍️ This lesson's prompt: Did "I have no eye for design" ever apply to you? After building one real hierarchy, does it feel more like a set of rules you can follow? Write down the one rule that surprised you most.
📝 Lesson Summary
🎓 Key Takeaways
- Hierarchy is a planned reading order, built with size, weight, and space.
- Give every line a job, then size it to match.
- Leading, tracking, kerning are your spacing controls in the Character panel.
- Type on a path flows text along any curve or shape.
🎉 What You've Accomplished
You can now make text look intentional instead of typed. Hierarchy is the backbone of every poster, ad, slide, and web page, so this one skill quietly upgrades everything visual you will ever make, not just this poster.
❓ Common Questions at This Stage
Point type vs paragraph type: which should I use?
Point type (single click) for short display lines like a title. Paragraph type (drag a text box) for anything that needs to wrap, like a description. Using paragraph type for a one-word title just makes it harder to move.
How big should the title be?
Bigger than feels comfortable. The most common fix on a beginner poster is "make the main thing much larger." If your 1st and 2nd lines are close in size, the hierarchy is too weak.
My curved text is upside down on the bottom of the circle.
That is normal. Grab the Path Selection tool and drag across the path to flip the text to the inside or the other side, then reposition with the start point.
🔭 Looking Ahead
Your type needs something to live on: shapes, frames, and graphic elements. Lesson 5.2 covers shapes and the Pen tool, the vector building blocks that stay razor sharp at any size, so your poster prints crisp whether it is a postcard or a billboard.
✅ Before the Next Lesson
- Build one clean hierarchy from scratch and keep the file for the poster.
- Collect two or three fonts you like into a small personal shortlist.
- Write your Learning Journal entry.
📚 Additional Resources
🌟 Encouragement for the Journey
Type intimidates people because bad type is everywhere and hard to name. You can now name it, and fix it. That is a designer's eye beginning to open, and it only sharpens from here.