The Elements of Typographic Style in Websites

Written by selva on December 12th, 2009

Typographic style and attention to detail have almost always been overlooked by website designers. This could have very well been attributed to the technology involved with website design. However this does not hold true anymore. With the advent of much improved browsers, text rendering and high resolution screens, all a designer needs is a good knowledge of typography in the digital medium. Let’s take a look at some of the basic rules of typography to be followed in website building. Cincinnati website developers provide simple and sound typographic solutions for websites.

The foremost thing is to choose the right font. While a lot of fonts look very legible and neat in print, the digital versions don’t work very well. Always use fonts that have been tried and tested and proven as clean cut neat fonts for web display.

The word space has to naturally suit the size and letter-fit of the font. If text is right aligned, the space between words is automatically set by the font. Most well designed fonts take care of this space very well. If the text is justified, the word space will be elastic and changed based on the line width. It is always better to avoid justification alignment.

Choose a comfortable visual measure for the length of the line. The satisfactory line length is considered to be 45 to 75 characters in a line.

Use a single word space between sentences. As a general rule, no more than a single space is required after a period, colon or any other mark of punctuation. Some people tend to follow Victorian rules of allowing two spaces after punctuation. Don’t stretch the space until it breaks. The correct amount space allows the eye to comprehend the space as a break and jump to the next word without the hand helping as a guide.

Add little or no space in between initials. Don’t add space in between the lower case alphabets without a reason. These spaces always hamper legibility.

Never alter the widths or shapes of letters for any reason whatsoever. In the digital medium, it is very easy for a designer to squish or stretch the letters with no regard for them.

Leading is the space in between two lines. Choose a good leading that suits the typeface, length of line and size of the font. This is one of the deciding factors that will isolate your website from most others. Try tweaking the leading a little bit so that it is a comfortable visual size.

Always set opening paragraphs without indent. All the paragraphs following the first in continuous text can be set with an indent of about one en space. Add extra lead before and after block quotations. Indent or center verse quotations. Never begin a page with the last line of a multi-line paragraph. Avoid more than three consecutive hyphenated lines in the same paragraph. This hinders the flow of information as well as breaks the visual movement. Use titling figures with full caps and text figures in all other circumstances.

These are some of the basic points which when noted allow one to have a typographically neat website. Cincinnati website developers create typographically strong websites.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 12th, 2009 at 6:28 am and is filed under Web Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.