On Web Typography

Well, it only took nearly a hundred issues since working on the A List Apart redesign for me to get around to writing an article.

I’ve had a blast working behind the scenes working with authors on fleshing out the visuals for their articles, but after repeated kindly nudges from the rest of the ALA staffers, I wrote one of my own: On Web Typography.

This has been a year packed with talk of type on the web. We’ve been making great strides in bringing real fonts to the web, a good progression that will help us rely less on replacement techniques. There are many great articles that boil down the technical hurdles involved in doing so, but I wanted to tackle what happens to our designs once we have lots of typefaces to choose from. How do you choose typefaces that suit your site’s message? What technical and aesthetic attributes should you look for in a typeface? How do you harmoniously combine typefaces? These are just some of the questions I tackle in my article, and I hope this helps start the discussion of how web fonts will affect a visual design process.

And, this installment of ALA is a whiz-bang all web fonts issue with an article on how to spec typefaces by the talented Tim Brown: Real Web Type in Real Web Context.

If you love type, head on over and check out this week’s A List Apart.

18 Comments

• Permalink for this comment Steve K says: November 17, 2009

  

  Sounds great, I’m actually a bit sick of reading about the technical aspects of fonts on the web, so good to see something that gets down to the actual use of it for once.

• Permalink for this comment Rizwan Reza says: November 17, 2009

  

  Congratulations on the breakthrough! You’ve done a fabulous job with the article.

• Permalink for this comment Josh says: November 17, 2009

  

  I’ve just read your piece. An excellent article on the actual application of typefaces in web design! Knowing how to use specific typefaces for certain visual contexts is equally important as the technical aspects, underpinning web fonts.

  I’m currently writing/presenting a research paper on typefaces, so your article has indeed arrived at an opportune time!

  Cheers
  Josh

• Permalink for this comment Tim Brown says: November 17, 2009

  

  Jason, your thoughts in On Web Typography are prescient; the reasons for choosing and combining type are rarely discussed, and I consider your article a foundation for discussion about specific combinations. Web typography needs more art — and this is how we’ll get there.

  Congratulations! An honor to write beside you, sir.

• Permalink for this comment Amrinder Sandhu says: November 17, 2009

  

  Very informative article. Great to see you writing for ALA.

• Permalink for this comment Corinne says: November 17, 2009

  

  Thank you for writing this! Beginning web design students seem to struggle with selecting fonts. I’ve decided to share your article to this semester’s students and will continue to do so in the future!

• Permalink for this comment Christoph says: November 18, 2009

  

  Great article. Many of the established practices in print design still have to be adopted by web designers, like the details of font selection. I hope we will have the technical and legal issues around font usage sorted out soon (can only be a matter of decades) so we can focus on the aesthetics only.

  Was great to see you at the FOWD NY today, your thoughts on context and encouraging quality content production are right on target.

• Permalink for this comment Krystyn says: November 19, 2009

  

  Great article. As a former CMYK turned RGB designer, I’m full of glee over @font-face.

  Really liked your design for Liz’s site, so much so that I turned my beta Typekit account into a paid one. ;)

• Permalink for this comment Luke Jones says: November 19, 2009

  

  Fantastic! Read your article today and was really impressed – hence the reason I’ve came to your blog!

• Permalink for this comment Bene says: November 20, 2009

  

  Nice and informative article. After years of searching for ways to implement fonts, I’m really happy to see that things are evolving in the right direction.

• Permalink for this comment Mike Carr says: November 20, 2009

  

  Excellent article

• Permalink for this comment alberto says: November 20, 2009

  

  Replacement techniques..why don t promote generic font-family giving more accessibility to the pages,create them in faster time? Quality of job could be less?

• Permalink for this comment Jordan Koschei says: November 26, 2009

  

  I’m looking forward to seeing more and more foundries licensing their fonts for embedding. Far-fetched though this is, I’d love to see Hoefler & Frere-Jones or House Industries open up their work for the web.

• Permalink for this comment Spencer Goldade says: December 02, 2009

  

  I came to your blog not knowing what to expect; someone had simply referred here trying to explain this fancy blog that altered its design to work in harmony with each new addition of content. I didn’t believe someone was doing it, or at least doing it well.

  In a matter of a few moments you have given me something that will sit with me for a long time. Completely memorable, and in a time where newspapers and magazines are slowly making a stronger switch to digital, your sensibilities couldn’t be more relevant and important. I’d consider you one of the first (and probably one of the most successful) pioneers of the new wave of digital design.

  Keep up the great work.

• Permalink for this comment Nathan Philpot says: December 02, 2009

  

  Great article. Even though this should be basic basic stuff for any designer, it is nice to be reminded. And I am guessing now that type choices are going to be increasing, we are probably going to go through the same type of phase as when the term ‘desktop publishing’ was coined.

• Permalink for this comment Jason Santa Maria says: December 02, 2009

  

  @ Spencer Goldade : Thanks very much for the kind words!

• Permalink for this comment Chris says: December 07, 2009

  

  Just thought I’d swing by here after reading your article on web type. Hit the nail on the head at just the right time – especially with the ‘meaning behind the font’ section. It’s so easy to pick a font that looks great without thinking of it’s contextual meaning. Cheers!

• Permalink for this comment Rafael delubo says: December 08, 2009

  

  As a very good thing you can describe it in a few strong words “excellent, to the point and interesting”

  Keep on “striking” us with more of those…

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