With all the fantastic tools available these days, it’s not hard to get a beautifully designed website, provided you know what you’re doing. Here at Unbound Website Creations, we know the tools and, as always, we are going to share some of our best tips and universal rules for quality web design with you.
One of the most important factors that is usually a secondary focus for amateur designers, and those who don’t pay much attention to user experience, is typography design.
When you understand the best practices for quality web design, you’re already halfway there, so let’s get right to it.
Let’s Talk About Typography in Web Design
Have you ever considered what the web really is all about? It’s all text. It’s your text that people want to read. It’s your text that ranks you on the search engines.
That’s why typography is so important in webdesign. It’s a matter of designing a site around the typography. Your design should show off your content and not the other way around.
That’s why many designers first have the web content created before they worry about the design.
When it comes to your headlines, apply the following rules:
- Lines should not exceed 60 characters.
- Use a font-size of a minimum 16 px, ensuring that it is much larger than what you think is good.
- Think legible – stay away from complicated fonts that are hard to read.
- Make your headlines scan-able and bold.
- Make it meaningful.
Choosing Your Typeface
When it comes to choosing fonts, less is more. Stick with a maximum of two fonts – one solid sans-serif type, and, if you want, one that is slightly more artistic. Some of the best typefaces for typographical web design, include Proxima Nova (premium font), Montserrat, Merriweather Sans, and Helvetica Neue. They are easy to read and gentle on the eyes, while still offering visual appeal.
Combining Fonts and Colors for Your Site Design and Typography Design
In a previous post, we discussed website color palettes and suggested that you choose three colors and stick to it. Well, the same rule applies. Pick your font colors from your design colors and stick with that too.
Most clean, modern designs use a white background with a dark (but not black) text value and a robust accent color. However, you need to remember to use that accent color sparingly.
Typography, Like a Good Wine, Needs to Breathe
You may be tempted to put all your content on one page to ensure readers get the maximum value for the minimum amount of clicks. However, if you have quality, engaging content, you will do much better to give it breathing space.
Use margins to increase focus and legibility, instead of overwhelming your visitors with large blocks of heavy text.
Here are some great tools that, when used sparingly, will give your content breathing space and visual appeal:
- Larger sub-headings
- Bullets
- Numbering
- Bold it!
- Italicize it!
- Icons or images
Be sure to break your text into legible paragraphs, as that will help to ensure your visitors can easily scan through the information to find elements that appeal to them. That will encourage them to click on links and read more information, which will hopefully steer them towards your “order” button.
Do you have any more typography design tips? We’d love to read your thoughts in comments below.