Design and Typography

Web typography

• Legibility vs readability

• Expressive fonts/type for eye catching readability

• Clean serif/sans-serif fonts/type for smaller body copy

• Sans-serif fonts designed for screen viewing assist in readability

Legibility

• These typefaces should be drawn and ctrafted with consistency among characters, and exhibit highly legible proportions

Serif vs Sans-Serif.

• Serif reads best at smaller sizes and can be complementary

Font variance

• Too many fonts confuse the reader

Definition

• Fonts that are too similar cause ambiguity

Readability

• Use upper and lower case letters for optimum clarity

Alignment

• Left alignment reads easiest

• Consider eye flow as it moves down a page

Emphasis

• Use these tools with discretion and without disturbing eye flow

Integrity

• Avoid stretching or distorting type fonts

Weight

• Strive for a sense of balance

Large text blocks

• Strive for consistency, rhythmic rags

• The purpose of effective rags is not only to achieve aesthetic beauty, but to enable readers to move gently and effortlessly down a text column

• Effective rags consist of lines establishing an informal but consistent pattern of line endings

Consistent spacing

• For text type, use consistent letter and word spacing to produce and uninterrupted texture

• Letters should flow gracefully and naturally into words, and words into lines

• This means that word spacing should increase proportionally as letter spacing increases