Natalie F. Smith is a book designer and typographer with over 15 years of professional experience. Her MFA research addresses typographic education in undergraduate graphic design curricula. Traditionally, courses in typography classes have been taught in a series building from individual character to word to paragraph to systems of type through multiple modalities of media [such as logos, posters, and magazine spreads]. This approach of investigating the insular to the larger system is rooted in the Bauhaus tradition from the 1920s. However, over the course of three semesters Smith has observed and taught the most advanced level of typography classes at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and noticed this progression is not necessarily the best for students. If the sequence of typography classes were inverted to study type systems first, through one systemic exemplar, students would have foundational knowledge of how the larger type system works before they begin studying the atomic parts of the system. The purpose of her thesis research is to showcase how teaching typographic systems through the lens of book design, as one systemic exemplar, is beneficial to students because a book contains elements of typographic systems [such as readability, hierarchy, and sequential organization] which can translate to all other areas of typography.