Typography

Typography was the topic of this week’s lecture, and it will play a huge role in this project. In fact, 95% of web design is made up of typography.

I looked at “Typography in 10 minutes” to find the 5 main typography rules:

• Body text: The body text is the most important because it makes up most of the document. I think that if you get this right, the quality will improve massively, and the rest will follow.
• Point size: This is how big the font is. The point size can change depending on the font so it’s important to be aware of this and adjust if need be. On-screen, the best point size is 15-25 pixels.
• Line spacing/leading: This is the distance vertically between lines. It should be 120-145% of the point size. I think it’s important to give each line room to breathe to make it more legible.
• Line length: This is the width of the line horizontally. This should average 45-90 characters per line. Any more than this, it’s easy for the eye to get lost. Therefore, it is important to set a maximum width so that on bigger screens, the line length doesn’t fill the whole page.
• Font choice: There are so many to choose from which is why I think it can be easy to make a mistake here, especially when it comes to pairing fonts. It is best to avoid system fonts like times new roman. Instead, choose one that is unique, legible, and easy to read.

 

I think all of these are equally important and add up to create a quality document of text. If one or more of these things are done wrong, it decreases the chance of people wanting to read it. Good typography can also make the web more accessible for example, for those with visual impairments or dyslexia. Overall, it will benefit everyone. It will be useful for me to have this list to look back on when writing my content for this project.

I want to look further into typography and gain inspiration from different sources as it would benefit me going forward in this project.