Typography and Style

When it comes to style Typography is at its most creative. The style of the type can either depend on the color, the weight, underlined or italics, and the typeface. This, for a designer like myself, is the most interesting part of typography and it can often be the trickiest. There are many things that we often want to experiment with that, in real life, would be hurtful to the content and the user. I like to play with script and grunge fonts. However, there are certain limits to how far one can go with the style that the user can handle.

• Color
  Colors are often used more than just for decoration when dealing with type. Though color can be useful for the look and feel of the theme of the page and for things such as branding, color is mainly used to distinguish navigation, headlines, links, and body text.Colors can even be used for showing that something is disabled like in the case of buttons. This can also be used to show depth like atmospheric perspective, when something is further away it is often lighter in color and less defined.Color can also be used to show emphasis to something like a warning or to set something apart from the rest of the text.
  
  
  Warning: This message will self-destruct in 10 seconds
  
  
  Though it isn't used much in body text, often headlines can be all one word with different colors defining the individual words.
  
  
  READMYBLOG
  
  
  Honestly, when it comes to color I often only think about the contrast between the text and its surroundings, to make it more legible, and the "theme" or color choices I've made for the page or site.
  

• Weight
  Weight is often used for emphasis like making things bold. This can draw more attention to certain words you want the reader to remember or see first.
  
  
  Being bold can draw attention.
  
  It's important to remember that if an entire body of text is in bold then the emphasis or contrast is lost.
  
  
  Avoid making everything bold.
  
  
  I often increase the weight of text for headings only. It depends on how well I want the text to stand out. Bold can be good for titles and banners but for certain typefaces I try to avoid increasing the weight.

• Italic Text
  Using italics, like bold, is often for emphasis without changing the weight of the text. I often use italics for references, quotations, and citations.
  
  
  “Live every moment as if it were your last.”
  
  
  These come in handy on reports but I rarely use them on web pages. Italics can also be used for sub-headings. I find that I don't like the outcome of this method but on certain typefaces it seems to work. On others, however, the text loses its legibility and becomes hard to read. It would definitely be unwise to create an entire body of text bold as this is too much of a strain for the eyes.
  

• Underlined Text
  Underlined text is advised against due to users mistaking it for a link. If you want to use it for emphasis then I suggest bold, color, or italics instead. Using underlined text as links is the appropriate use and can help ease user navigation. If a link isn't underlined then it's hard to find all the links and can be hazardous to the user. If, however, you absolutely need to underline text for emphasis then I suggest having the links a specific color to show that that underlined text is in fact a link. I have yet to use underlined text in my pages except for the default for links.
  
  
  I'm a link, but I am not.

The Issue of the Web: Users vs. Designers

Many designers think that they are in control. They can decide what typeface they want to use no matter how illegible it may be and what size to scale it to. These designers are in for a rude awakening because the designer may be able to choose the look and feel of the site but it’s really the Users who have control. The Users are who the Designers are creating the sites and certain conditions need to be taken into account when designing a web page.

• Size of the browser window
  There are many browsers out there in the world and the users use all of them. It’s best to design the site that’s compatible with as many browsers as possible and designing for other media like cell phones is always a plus as it adds the number of users that are able to view your site.
• Screen resolution
  
  If the screen resolution is bad then pictures and graphics will become fuzzy and hard to decipher. The screen resolution doesn’t normally have to be perfect but there is a set standard of 72dpi for the web. That’s 72 dots (pixels) per inch. If you were printing then the resolution would have to be significantly higher in order for the printer to capture as much detail as possible. There are certain advantages to creating on the web.
• Operating system
  I am a PC and work mostly in a Windows environment though I can manage a Mac just fine. Since I live and breathe Windows I tend to script for Windows. That doesn’t mean you have to nor does it mean that you are confined to just one operating system. I like to think that the more you know how to script the better chance you have of getting your page noticed.
• Default font size
  Default font size for body text would be 12pt. Default sizes for me are often determined by tags such as h1, p, etc. I find that these are extremely useful because they give you your default sizes. In order to change these sizes then simply include them in you CSS and change the size to whatever you want. This also helps identify which elements you would like to be that size without having to individually change the size for each individual element.