Typography is the designers’ and illustrators’ most multifaceted weapon. It is seen everywhere. On our screens, in our books and magazines, on our breakfast packaging. We’re always being inspired by the typography around us, even if you don’t know it yet. With it being just about everywhere we look, it inspires us to break the rules, which a lot of the typographic-based posters below do, and do incredibly well, too. We have a lovely, eye-catching and mind-blowing collection of 40 typographic posters below, all designed by some of the best and most-talented typographic designers and illustrators this side of the millennium. We’d love to know your favorite poster below, why it’s your favorite, and if we missed any of your favorite typography posters. Enjoy!

Creative: Timba Smits

Timba Smits makes superb use of hand-drawn style illustration and retro/vintage techniques in their illustrations. To make the work that little bit more special, limited color schemes are used. In “Colab Eyewear: X-Ray Glasses” for example, just four colors are used; three of which are shades of green, and the last a low saturated beige.

Ignore Me

Hand Made Edition

Lyrics & Type: Verse 2

Colab Eyewear: X-Ray Glasses

Creative: Nicolas Tual (aka Dekore)

Nicolas Tual uses strong strokes, minimal color schemes and textured images to bring his work to life, and it works tremendously well. The contrast between the different shades of green in “Smoking Elephants” really help to take it all in and appreciate the custom illustrated typography.

Smoking Elephants

Nike USA Street T-Shirt

Creative: Nick Deakin

Nick Deakin likes to merge two highly popular medias; photography and illustration. The outcome brings interesting, compelling and interesting results. Nick also uses real-life (wooden) frames in his work, allowing it jump from the canvas and become three-dimensional. A great effect that simply makes his illustrated type pop.

I’ve Never Felt Like This Exhibition

Creative: Steph Baxter

Steph Baxter uses a limited, desaturated color palette, allowing her to concentrate on the importance of the shapes and lines in her work. The hand-drawn, custom typography mixed with the use of stroked lines in the background really makes these pieces captivating.

Last Night I Dreamt I Lived In A Forest

If At First You Don’t Succeed Try Again

Everything Will Be Fine!

Creative: Alison Carmichael

Alison Carmichael is known for her experimental typography projects, the below example being one of her recent popular pieces. This advertisement for Twinings Tea uses real tea to produce a great, grainy typography. The detail is just incredible.

The Next Minute… POW!

Creative: Lennard Schuurmans

Lennard Schuurmans produces black and white typographic illustrated posters on a regular occasion, with the odd color poster squeezing its way in from time to time. When color is used, it’s limited, using mainly contrasting colors (such as blue and red), with the addition of a dark color. Stroked line are quite often used to give the typography a three-dimensional effect.

Heavy Trash

Op Ge Ruim D het Jaar In

Gewoon Goed Voor Het Milieu Ja

Creative: Serial Cut Studio

This typographic poster by Serial Cut Studio again, like so many others, uses a limited color scheme, and is separated by the use of shadows on the three-dimensional type.

The Brilliant Design Lecture

Creative: Kliment Kalchev

Kliment Kalchev is quite clearly a fan of minimal and simplistic design. His typographic designs are very abstract, repetitive, and are quite often lost in a pool of whitespace. It makes for an engrossing piece of art, and makes the human imagination run wild.

Barcelona

Creative: Designed By Family

Designed By Family also use minimalism to help draw attention to their creative typography compositions. They use just one color in all of the below examples, making them unique and professional, yet still interesting to look at.

HelFrankFurt

Cycles

Hypocripsy

And Now For Something Completely Different

Creative: Istvan Szugyiczky

Istvan Szugyiczky is clearly a fan of abstract art and typography, and combines the two to create some really compelling and unique typographic illustrated posters. From repeated shapes with different gradients applied to each one, to three-dimensional effects to make the unusual type burst from the paper (or screen in this case!).

Japan

Beautiful Decay

Bipolar

Retrospectivo

Creative: Sean Freeman (aka There Is)

Sean Freeman takes a different approach to most, and creates his typographic compositions by hand and then photographs his work. The last example, “Cream 09″, like the Twinings advertisement further up in this showcase, uses the real product (cream in this case) to create a beautiful effect.

Fear

Hot

Cream 09

Creative: Craig Ward

Craig Ward is another fan of minimal type and design, but mixes it up a little with some different effects, such as splash marks, smudges and shadows.

Ink And Water Don’t Mix

Bad Typography Is Everywhere / Good Typography Is Invisible

Six Degrees Mixed By Stuart Royall

Creative: Luke Lucas

Luke Lucas is an experimental three-dimensional typography expert. He combines a handful of effects, gradients and various other tools to create two-dimensional text with a great three-dimensional effect.

Warning: Some Scenes Do Not Contain Nudity

Some Type Of Wonderful

Creative: Roman Pellejero

Roman Pellejero uses some of the design industry’s recent and very popular “trends” in his typographic artwork. Smooth gradients, shadows and highlights play a big part in making his posters come to life; the effects are relatively simple but are pulled off so perfectly the designs look incredibly elegant and professional.

BCN: Barcelona

2010 Donut

Creative: Theo Aartsma

Theo Aartsma’s busy typographic work combines hundreds of techniques and superb skills. The detail in each of the below pieces is incredible and almost life-like!