Images, videos, and cool graphics make simple text look boring; but did you know that you can use the text of your website as a design element? Good typography can take that boring text and transform it into an indispensable design element for your website. When used properly, typography can do many good things for your company’s branding. The first impression a user gets is heavily impacted by typography. Obviously we want that to be a good impression. In this article we will cover everything you need to know to create awesome typography for your website.
What Is Typography?
Typography is the art of arranging type (letters and characters), in a way that makes sense and looks good. Typography goes beyond just the design of the letters. It also focuses on the height of each character and the spacing between lines, words, and even the entire page. Basically, typography is the practice of working with text in a graphic format.
How Typography Affects The Web
Studies have found that users pay more attention to attractive looking text. Keep in mind that just because your text may look awesome, that doesn’t mean it should be long. Less than 20% of text online is actually read. Make sure that the actual text on your page is worth reading and delivers important information. Blogs are a different story. Blogs often times contain a large amount of text. Because of this, it is especially important that your blog’s text looks great and is easy to read.
Typography Techniques
Our primary goal when working with typography should be to create good-looking text that is easily read. After all, text is meant to be read. One of the ways to make a font more legible is to use contrast. Humans are programmed to notice things that stand out. If an object on the page is bigger, brighter, or colored differently than surrounding objects, the human eye will be drawn to it. We can use this to our advantage. By using different fonts, font-sizes, and colors you can make specific words pop out to the viewer.
Typography For Your Website
Good typography is governed by so much more than just the font you choose. Colors, font-size, and serif or sans-serif fonts are also immensely important. When designing the typography of your website, you might be tempted to use the most common practices used by other web sites. This is not always the best option. Take, for example, font-size. The most common sizes for fonts are between 12-14 pixels. 16 pixels is actually a much better size because browsers were intended to display it by default. Generally you will want to use sans-serif fonts for headlines and serif fonts for bodies though experimenting is encouraged. Most font colors are either black or white depending on the background color. Whatever colors you choose, make sure they contrast well so that the eye can see them.
Conclusion
Typography is very important for websites, especially now that flat web design is so popular. Flat web design strips sites of most ornamental elements so that the design is communicated through typography, colors, and layout. Keep in mind that the guidelines listed in this article may not be the best practices for your specific company and/or website. Things like font-size can vary based upon your audience. An older audience my need a bigger font size in order to make text easily visible. Choosing your fonts are up to you, but you do want to avoid heavily-ornamented text for anything other than occasional emphasis.
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