Designpin

Recently I have been wondering and thinking about the information that I search for in the web. At times I am looking for photos, sometimes for other materials like files or programmes. I look up some books that I find interesting or some equipment that I intend to but. But most of the time I looking at other kind of data and I am quite sure that majority of users do the same. What I am talking about, well the answer is straight forward. I am talking about text, letters, words and sentences. They rule the contemporary internet and they convey the huge majority of messages that we either want to see or not.

You have most certainly figured out what will be the article about. I will try to present some thoughts and some tips concerning modern typography in the year of responsive design. Because we have to consider the fact that most of sites now created are developed in responsive technique to facilitate and boost users’ experience.

General remarks

Despite the fact that a significant part of web content consists of text the typography is very often overlooked. Maybe some developers think that it is too time-consuming to take care about the type and readability of text but there nothing more misleading. Spending even few minutes with what was written can make wonders with your site. Because you have to remember that the text is most probably the centrepiece of your website. If you arrange your text properly and if you choose the right font it is almost certain that users who visit your site will enjoy browsing your content.

Have you read your own text?

Well, of course you have, at least once when you were writing it. But it is not enough to read it once. You have to make sure that the text is written in proper style and that you use suitable language. However, it is not all what you need to know. Some developers or bloggers tend to write an article and afterwards they put is straight to their site. It is advisable to spent couple of minutes more to format the text properly, take care of headings and proper division of paragraphs, and checking once if there are no errors. Quality text will ensure that you properly engage visitors and other users to share your content.

You should also pay attention to let’s call it blank spaces. When you read your article once more you may boost your typography by eliminating unnecessary spaces that simply make your text look odd. Second reading also ensures that you catch phrases and sentences that are too long or difficult to read. Those simple steps may make your article even more interesting and user-friendly.

Spaces or no spaces

We all know that an article consists mainly of letters, words and sentences, namely text. But not all of us pay attention to spaces. We tend to underestimate the power of a blank line or simply a wider spaces between lines. Consider an article for example a thousand-word-long with no spaces and and that is tightly formatted, of formatted at all. I do not thing that it would be pleasant to read.

So take a look at your article and decide if it reads pleasantly. Whether there are several paragraphs and that there are no unnecessary spaces.
You may also consider using bigger line height. Instead of using normal 100% line try to set the height at around 150%. Your article will gain a lot of readability and users will be thankful for that update.

Interface

In the developing world of technology and web development the text plays one of the major roles. Once I have read an article, unfortunately
I don’t remember the author or title, saying that developer should treat the text as a user interface. I was thinking on that statement and rethinking in time after time. When you are in a total control over typography you are able to convey much more than a simple article and ideas in it. The knowledge how to treat the text, usage of bold text, or italics place you in the very centre

Look at this simple example. You are most probably familiar with reddit or google. Of course you are familiar with them. They incorporate the text as the interface of their pages. You don not get much more. Simple minimalistic graphic design and the text. In a way we are manipulated by the keywords, key phrases and directed towards content that we were not looking for but find interesting.

As you can see the text plays here the major role.

When you take under consideration choosing the text as your main content try to remember about some minor but at the same time really important things. Try to think about word and letter spacing. When you get the impression that the text on your site reads not completely comfortable try to manipulate these parameters and you will see how this simple action may improve the experience. You have to also consider the colour and contrast between the background image and the text. Slight change of text hue may be a huge improvement.

Conclusions

In this way we have come to an end of this article. I hope that some tips will help you to make the most out of your articles and sites. The art of typography is field of science to master. I am a learner too and I have to admit that through reading and experiencing the internet you may learn a lot.

One of the best ways to learn something about typography is reading. Read as much as you can on the topic and experiment. Theory without practice also does not make much sense. But while surfing the net you certainly pay attention to websites where the text is almost illegible or when you are tired after reading a longer piece of writing.

If you find this article helpful let us know. Your comments are most welcomed and we also invite you to visit us on one or all social platforms. We are on TWITTER, FACEBOOK, GOOGLE PLUS and PINTERES.

Below we have some examples of interesting sites that incorporate text as the main designing source.

Imagemechanics

Elysiomburns

Industrial facility

Ch3mical

Bluezroom

FillStudio