One of the best ways to become an expert in an area is to educate yourself and then practice, practice, practice. Learning a skill in graphic design is no different than any other area in this aspect. The best part, however, is that so much free design education and knowledge is available through the web. Typography in design is probably a favorite skill of many designers to learn, play around with, and perfect. Below are some of the best typography tutorials around, and they should be exactly what you need to take your type skills to the next level. Have fun learning! This is a guest post by Tara Hornor.

Create a Realistic Emboss/Deboss Text Effect in Photoshop

Create a Unique 3D Typography
A tutorial for Illustrator that walks you through how to build out interesting typography designs using the 3D tools in Illustrator.

Colorful Candy
An advanced tutorial that optionally recommends the use of 3D Studio Max, but can be done entirely in Photoshop. The effect looks like the typography is dripping off the page and has lots of interesting applications.

Candy Cane Typography
Another advanced tutorial for Illustrator and Photoshop. The final product has many uses and the tool you create during the process can be used and re-used for many other types of projects.

Super Glossy 3D Typography
An excellent Illustrator and Photoshop tutorial for building any kind of 3D text, but the glass effects are awesome, too.

Ridiculously Realistic Flame Text
A simple Photoshop tutorial for building realistic fiery text. It’s easy to do and can be used on lots of different types of pieces.

Liquid Filled Glass Text
This is definitely a glass half full Photoshop tutorial. You can use the glass-like effect all by itself and get stunning results. The treatment of the liquid is a new twist with lots of uses.

Typography Wallpaper
A simple but effective typography tutorial for Photoshop. It’s also a great way to learn how to use Smart Objects.

Creepy Branch-Based Typography
An eerie effect with many great steps for building textures and subtle details.

Eroded Metal Text
A Photoshop tutorial that walks you through creating your own patterns and overlay techniques. The final results are easy to replicate later on just about anything.

Create a Blue Jean Pocket
While not a strictly text-based tutorial, the use of the pen tool and font treatments are extremely useful and easy to do.

Awesome 3D Text Effect
This is an advanced Photoshop tutorial that covers the use of layer masks, the warp tool, brush techniques, and color balance techniques.

Stylish Embossed Text
Embossing is a bit of an art form of its own and this tutorial provides excellent steps to get your text to look just right.

Make a Wooden Tex Effect
This Illustrator tutorial is excellent for creating textures in Illustrator and a great use of negative space as well.

Modern 3D Text Effect
A fantastic tutorial covering Photoshop and Illustrator tools for 3D creation and shadow treatments.

Rope Effect using the Puppet Warp Tool
A nice tutorial covering the puppet warp tool in Photoshop that can be used for many interesting effects.

Author’s bio
Tara Hornor has a degree in English and writes about marketing, advertising, branding, graphic design, and desktop publishing. She works for PrintPlace.com, an online printing company that offers postcards, posters, brochure printing, postcard printing, and more printed marketing media. In addition to her writing career, Tara also enjoys spending time with her husband and two children.