How Important Is Typography In your Design?
Saurabh Tiwary | 13th July 2016
Ever wondered why typography has been so popular in the field of web and graphics design! Well, a design that makes a proper balance between graphics and texts is often lauded and looks very pleasant to the viewers. While images and videos are the part of graphics, Typography takes the usefulness of fonts to the next level. Let’s put some light on how important is typography in the design process.
Typography And Readability
As said, the readability of the text depends both on its content viz. Vocabulary, Grammar and its typography. Typography is the science of organizing the letters used in the article in order to make them readable and impressive. Typography has evolved as digitization progressed. In the early days, typography was a specialized department. However, t nowadays it is something that everybody has to deal with. Typography revolves around selecting typefaces, font size, line length, line-spacing and letter-spacing etc.
Font vs. Typefaces
When you tend to explore more about typography, you might come across the term Typeface which is often used while talking about the font. So, what is the difference between a Font and a Typeface?
- A font comprises of typefaces that have similar characteristics.
- A typeface is generally an individual member of a font family.
A font can have different variations in its design and individual variation is referred to as a Typeface.
Sans Serif: Among all the font types available, Sans Serif remains the first choice for most of the designers. It is considered to be a decorative font, as their appearance may well serve a number of purposes. Serif typefaces are credited a lot for enhancing both the readability and reading speed of long texts because of its open spacing. Sans Serif fonts are often modern, trendy and streamlined. However, they tend to be harder to read at smaller sizes.
Some of the aspects to look for in Typography design are:-
Font Size- A font having size of 14 is easily readable on most of the devices including desktop and mobiles. 10 years ago, font size used to be quite smaller than what we have today.
Font Color- The font color mainly depends on the type of information you have and what design your website uses. However, we say that using a black font on a white background is still the best read. So, this principle can be applied in the way that uses a dark color on the light background depending on your theme.
Whitespace- When you are done with font size and color, you need to make it sure that the text has sufficient room to breathe. If you employ large fonts and forget to add the white space for headings and paragraphs, your text won’t be legitimate. Whitespace has a lot of impact in visibility on mobile phones.
