Chapter 8: Typography

Characteristics of Type on the Web
This chapter focuses on type styles and aspects of their construction. Much of the information is about the advantages of using CSS to ensure site consistency.

Legibility
This chapter highlights variables necessary to create contrast and patterns to attract the user’s eyes and attention.

Typefaces
Designers can specify their typeface with both HTML and CSS; however, if it is a font the user’s device does not have, it will default to a font. The rest of the chapter outlines different aspects to consider when choosing typefaces.

Emphasis
When making text choices such as italics, bold, color, etc., they should be used tastefully and sparingly and, if done well, will draw readers to the material.

Display Typography with Graphics
The best typography to use for typography is plain HTML text, as it is the most flexible across different mediums.

Sidebar: Signal to Noise Ratio
This section discusses the development of views on graphics through critics and factors that produce web junk. Such factors that should be avoided are attention to any cost, restricted screen space, and lack of control of page elements.

My Response
As someone who struggles with eyesight, I appreciated the chapter on typography and its importance in web design, as what use is a site if it can not be easily read universally. The section on type color was relatively short; I wish they had gone more in-depth and expanded even more on this section; as an avid reader, which is mainly done on my phone Kindle app, one of my favorite features is being able to manipulate the font size and type to fit my needs. An aspect they did not touch on (at least in this chapter) is also the ability to manipulate screen and text color; for example, I prefer my background theme to be black and my text white, but they have multiple options to create a web environment to suit the needs of users.