Letters can be filled with gradients, patterns, and colors, outlined, and shadowed, just to name a few effects, such as Bob's Tractor Service .
Graphics use original drawings or pictures which can be altered and colored in the computer.
I was studying package design, so we used lots of small letters. Throughout my life at Art Center and especially the third year, I created riginal logos, reshaping letters and words into concepts. Today, there are so many fonts available, so much clip art, it's easy to forget where these letters came from, that humans designed graphic art, as we plow our way through thousands of fonts and clip art images, just using them up.