Typography

In Graphic Design, Typography is a common term to hear. Outside of graphic design students, most people have absolutely no idea what it is or how often the subject affects their lives. They might even think it refers to maps. Since we aren’t looking to create our own font system, we just want to understand how to employ typography to make our websites look better.

Simply put, typography is a subject that covers every little thing about how a character is written, from the descender height to the ascender height. No worries, I won’t break it down to every little detail. What’s important are the few concepts about using fonts on your website and how they should look to provide the best feel for your users. While it sounds very scientific, in reality, people often have a taste for the art side of typography. For instance, the science would tell us that Helvetica is one of the greatest fonts ever, but there are a few people in the world who hate it.

I cannot discuss all of the rules of typography on one page, so the following tutorials will discuss many important rules and principles to follow. To start tinkering around with fonts check out the tutorial about fonts in spacing in the CSS section. Many good designers take a lot of time experimenting with fonts to see how they play together and how they will impact the look and feel of the website. This is how people develop different design styles. You get to a certain font combination that you like, and you continue to build from it. Of course, it never hurts to burn the norm to the ground and try something radically different. Just make sure you evaluate your new creation to make sure it is still pleasing to the eye.