Definitive guide
Importance of Typography
The Importance of Typography in Web Design
The importance of typography in web design can not be undermined. Typography pertains to the art and science of arranging and presenting fonts in combination with other design elements to ensure an aesthetically readable and engaging text or copy.
The typography, along with color, creates the vibe in a website and evokes emotions from its visitors. Typography, after all, is one of the basic elements of website design that influences user perception and brand reputation.
With user experience as the new king online, business owners, especially startups, should then make sure they use the right typography in their website.
What makes the right typography
The main purpose of typography is to engage visitors with the website’s content. Its secondary purpose is to convey information.
To do this, the typography must be aesthetic, effective, and masterly.
1. Aesthethic
Is the typography visually appealing?
2. Effective
- Does the typography immediately convey the message in a scan of an eye?
- Is the typography able to instill in website visitors the business’s values and personality?
3. Masterly
- Is the typography’s execution done proficiently such that the viewer or reader is satisfied or happy?
- Does the typography aid in achieving higher visitor retention and user satisfaction?
Answering these questions early on, would help you choose the right typography for your website. Having a Communication and Design Manual would even make it easier for you to arrive at the right typography.
The Communication and Design Manual is a very important book that standardizes your business color, fonts, tone of voice, logo, and other design elements to ensure consistent branding in all forms of communication and creative projects.
Thus, it becomes very handy in identifying the right typography for your website in line with your business identity and reputation.
Besides the main characteristics of typography, one must also be guided by specific considerations.
Other Considerations In Arriving At The Right Typography
There are specific considerations to remember to arrive at using the right typography for your website. These are its:
1. Readability
Readability or Legibility refers to the characteristic of a group or block of text to be read easily or with ease.
Readability is formed by the typeface, font size, font weight (the thickness or thinness of a font), arrangement, and spacing in the website’s content.
According to a study led by University of Patras Scientist Dimitris Gkikas, content readability and length has a direct effect on brand awareness and consumer engagement. The study revealed that texts that are easy to read and that have 31 words or 321 characters had higher consumer engagement and brand awareness.
2. Compatibility with the World Wide Web
Font availability is another consideration to remember in ensuring a consistent pleasurable user experience for all visitors of your website.
Not all fonts are considered “web safe” or are compatible with all browsers and are pre-loaded in the visitor’s device.
Web safe fonts are supported by Google and most search engines, as well as, website builders like WordPress.
Thus, it is best to use fonts that are commonly used online such as Arial, Courier New, Impact, Georgia, Gill Sans MT, Tahoma, Times New Roman, Trebuchet MS, and Verdana.
On the other hand, there is also the option of using web fonts, which are preloaded fonts in a hosting server that allows faster loading times (100–300 milliseconds), better accessibility, and usability.
Web fonts are not normally preloaded in the device of a visitor but the hosting server takes care of this since it is already available from their end. Thus, more are able to view it at a better quality since these fonts are zoomable, making them a good option for the visually-challenged.
The downside of web fonts is when the hosting server is down. Due to this, many still prefer to use websafe fonts or Google Fonts, which have more than 700 varieties.
3. Uniformity to brand identity
There are several factors in choosing the right font for your website. This includes branding. The font must convey the same values and personality of your brand.
Statistics show that brand recognition increases by 80% after consistently using a specific font.
In addition, consumer engagement increases by 30% whenever brand-consistent fonts are used. This is why more companies are making customized fonts for branding purposes.
Current studies show that custom fonts for unique branding have been undertaken by 70% of global brands. Take the case of Brainlab and M&Ms, who, alongside their rebranding efforts, included the customization of fonts for them.
Medical technology global leader Brainlab customized Helvetica for their rebranding. While M&Ms created a new typeface called All Together to represent the brand’s renowned joyfulness and family-orientedness when it had its makeover after 80 years in business.
The new typeface is said to be an attention-getter for its large, conversational, warmth, and playful-looking fonts.
4. Compliance to accessibility standards
There is also the consideration that your chosen typeface or fonts comply with accessibility standards.
Statistics reveal that fonts for the visually-challenged have been adapted by 30% of websites as of 2023. A probable result of the 15% increase in demand for fonts that are accessibility-focused.
This means it is imperative that the font used in a website is friendly to the visually-challenged or disabled.
One has to choose an easy-to-read font, use the right contrast for the text against the background, and use an appropriate size of font.
Adding alternative fonts for easy reading, providing font size alteration options for content, assigning alternative text to images, and equipping contrast settings for screens makes a website more accessible to visitors with reading challenges.
5. Adherence to internet rules
Another consideration when it comes to typography is compliance to internet standards like those set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the WordPress Americans with Disability Act (ADA).
These standards dictate the right font size for paragraphs, the lead paragraph size, the set hierarchy of lines of text or paragraphs and its corresponding markups in coding (Semantic HTML for text formating), CSS formats for texts (CSS3 @font declaration for customized fonts), and many more.
Adhering to these standards with your website’s typography not only assures compliant content and website usability but also protects your company from legal issues. Plus, it guarantees your website’s accessibility, compatibility, loading speed, and search engine optimization.
With the awareness of what makes the right typography, let us dive deeper into the topic by knowing and understanding the components of typography.
What are the components of typography?
Typography is composed of the typeface, arrangement, color, contrast, consistency, hierarchy, and spacing.
1. Typeface
Typeface is often interchanged with fonts. Technically, fonts and typefaces are not the same thing.
Fonts are the style of lettering that gives it a distinct character and use. The typeface, on the other hand, pertains to the family a particular font belongs to.
There are four main categories of typefaces:
1.1. Serif
Serif typefaces have extensions or decorative strokes at the end of the letters based on Roman square capitals.
These extensions or strokes are called “serifs”. Serifs have less visual impact than others and are good to use in long paragraphs or blocks of text since they are easy to read.
They help guide the eyes in reading from line to line, which is commonly used in books, newspapers, magazines, and other printing press materials.
Online, they are often used to give a traditional or classic feel to websites. It is a perfect typeface when designing professional-looking websites.
Examples of serif typefaces are Bodoni, Garamond, Georgia, and Times New Roman.
1.2. Sans Serif
Sans Serif typefaces on the other hand are more rounded, cleand, simple, and do not have strokes at the end of the letters. Literally, “sans serif” means “without the serif”.
There are several variations or types of Sans Serif: Geometric, Grotesque, Humanist, and Neo-Grotesque.
They are great to use against low-resolution backgrounds as either short lines of text or as headlines due to their high readability. They are best to ensure the responsiveness of your website.
In fact, statistics show it is the preferred typeface to make websites mobile-friendly. Examples of Sans Serif typefaces are Arial, Franklin Gothic, Frutiger, Futura, Helvetica, Verdana.
1.3. Slab Serif
Also called the Egyptian Typeface, the Slab Serif Typeface has square-like or block-like decorative extensions or strokes at the end of the letters.
They have a bolder, heavier, or stronger appearance than the Serif Typeface and a more formal or traditional appeal than the Sans Serif Typeface.
These features along with having less contrast than the other typefaces make them the perfect font for displays or as an alternative font for headlines.
It is great to use for advertisements, logos, book covers, posters, and other printing materials including books, magazines, and newspapers. Examples of Slab Serif are Clarendon, Courier New, Memphis, Rockwell, and Serifa.
1.4. Script
The Script Typeface is the easiest to identify since it is the most decorative of all typefaces. It resembles or mimics handwritten letters.
Accordingly, the typeface was created with the intention of capturing or reviving the traditional and forgotten art of calligraphy.
The Script Typeface, which is great to pair with other typefaces to exude different moods, is great as a display font for design projects like invitations, logos, posters, and stationeries.
Due to these features, this typeface is not recommended for use in paragraphs or blocks of text online since it would give an eye strain as it takes longer time to read.
Examples of the Script Typeface are Amarone, Bayamo, Brush Script MT, Freestyle Script, Liesel, Lucida Handwriting, and Playlist Script.
It is important to use the right typeface and the right font since statistics show 10% of reading comprehension is affected by font type.
2. Arrangement
Besides the typeface, another component of typography is the arrangement. This particularly pertains to the alignment of the paragraphs or copy (right, left, centered, justified) and the layout or presentation of the text in a webpage. There should be harmony in the arrangement of the text with the other elements of design such as graphics so that it is presented in a clean, orderly manner. Doing so makes it easy for website visitors to scan through content and have a pleasant experience browsing each page of the website.
3. Color
Color influences a website visitor’s emotions and brand perception as it directs attention for navigation. This is the overall message of a study presented during the 2023 CHI Conference On Human Factors In Computing Systems held in Germany.
The study stressed that colored fonts increased average empathy ratings and that color had a direct impact in expressing emotions among readers.
It is necessary then that the colors of fonts must align with the company’s branding and blend with the website’s overall color theme.
Using color in headlines–either complementary or contrast to background colors–is an often strategy for visual hierarchy and legibility. Balancing the saturation and color of fonts is necessary to maintain a professional-looking, clean design.
4. Contrast
Contrast refers to creating a distinction between fonts, between fonts and the background color, and between fonts and other design elements. Color is often used to create contrast with design elements and normally used to convey an intended vibe or emotion in the website, which often is aligned with the brand identity. Another way is to use a variety of font styles (bold, italicized, underlined) and casings (all caps) in your content for emphasis or differentiation.
5. Consistency
Consistency pertains to the use of a standard set of typeface throughout the website that should not be more than three as it is a common the rule in designing (Rule of Thirds). Using two typefaces for similar elements is the best approach.
Consistency also involves using a standard font size and font weight for similar elements, as well as, a similar character spacing and line height for all content.
6. Hierarchy
Hierarchy refers to the use of a standard style and size of font in a particular area of your content that is consistently applied in the website. There is the need to have a different size, style (bold, italicized, or underline), type, and, at times even color, of font for the text body or paragraphs from the titles and subtitles of a website.
Normally, this is where the types of headings are used. One must then identify and sort text according to its position in the content whether it should be the headline 1 or title, headline 2 or subtitle, body text or paragraph, and caption, etc.
This is intended to make prominent the different levels of text in your website. This is meant to highlight important information in the content.
Doing so ensures readability and increases visitor attention and engagement.
7. Spacing
Lastly, spacing involves four types. One pertains to the overall space surrounding the different design elements in a website often called the “white space”.
Another involves the spacing between the letters in a line of text called “kerning”. Kerning also involves the thickness or thinness of a letter, which could be adjusted to make words readable.
Then there is the word tracking or the spacing between words. Plus, there is the leading or the horizontal spacing between each line of text.
Familiarity with the different typography elements is essential so that you will know how to adjust or modify website content to arrive at a visually pleasing design.
What is the importance of typography in web design?
Having said all these, one gets a clear idea of the importance of typography in website design. Let me reiterate what these are:
1. To make website visitors happy
The primary importance of typography done right in a website is to make visitors happy. The right typography provides visitors with a consistently pleasant and memorable experience.
2. To create a proficient website information architecture
The right typography aids website visitors to easily understand your content and guides them in browsing it.
It creates a hierarchy of information that improves website usability or makes it easy to use.
Whereas poor typography leads to visitor confusion and frustration, which often ends in website abandonment.
3. To improve website and company credibility
The right typography creates a professional impression for the website by making its content clear, clean, and orderly. In turn, this improves the credibility of both the website and the company it represents.
4. To influence visitor interaction or engagement
The right typography creates a legible, visually appealing, and stimulating content. The result is a more engaged website visitor since they stay longer to read content and actually interact with it.
5. To boost website accessibility
The right typography boosts website accessibility by as much as 10 times since more website visitors including the visually-challenged can conveniently obtain and read the information they need.
6. To build and reinforce brand identity
The right typography aids companies in building brand identity through the use of consistent font types, styles, and color.
It also reinforces brand identity as it consistently conveys the product or company values and personality across the content and design.
7. To achieve better search engine ranking
Using the right typography helps your website achieve better search engine optimization. Search engines like Google check on the number of fonts and the size of fonts used in a website when gauging it for search results ranking.
Fonts size and type affect the usability, accessibility, readability, and responsiveness of a website, which influences user experience.
A website with fonts that are difficult-to-read, takes time to load (more than 2 seconds on slow internet connection), has low contrast, and is not compatible with all browsers and devices results in more visitors leaving the website immediately just after discovering it from search engine results.
This will reflect higher bounce rates, which Google takes into consideration for search engine ranking. Now, all of this would have been avoided if the right typography is in place in a website.
In A Nutshell
The importance of typography in web design is seen and felt in a website’s overall performance, visitor engagement, brand recall, and search engine optimization. It is essential to the success and competitiveness of a website on the World Wide Web.
Sources Used
FAQs
1. What Is Typography for?
Typography is the art and science of arranging and presenting fonts in combination with other design elements to ensure an aesthetically readable and engaging text or copy. Its purpose is to engage visitors with the website’s content and to convey information.
2. What makes typography important in web design?
Typography is important in web design because it strengthens branding, affects user experience, website performance, and search engine optimization.