Typography

Today the topic is typography. I’m going to cover some basics of what you need to know to properly understand and use text on a web page.

The most important thing to understand is the fonts used by each internet viewer comes from their font file system on their computer. They may have the same font files as the designers, but not necessarily. The creator of the web page will select a specific font that suits the appearance that they are trying to project. If the viewer does not have that specific font, their browser will pick a font that they have.

Using a font that’s different than that used by the web page designer could alter and distort the web page layout. Hopefully though the browser will select a font that similar to what the web page designer selected, but they do not have control of that process.

To minimize the problem, it is best to select 2 or 3 fonts that you like and then lastly list either sans serif or serif as the class of fonts you want so that when the browser selects a font at least it will be in the same class.

There are 4 basic groups of fonts: serif, sans serif, script and decorative. The first two are by far the most popular. The serif is further broken down into oldstyle, modern, and slab. The idea behind the serif and sans serif is to promote readability, the serif for printed material and the sans serif for computer screens generally result in better readability. These are general guidelines and not absolutes.

The serif fonts are cauterized by little tails or serifs on the letters. The sans serif does not have these tails/serif. The sans means no. So, sans serif is letters with no serifs. Below are examples of both.

Serif     Sans Serif