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How important is the typography on a website

When people visit your website they might look at the images and the colours but you can be sure they will be reading the text.

Text does so much on your website

The main task of your website is to convey information, and no matter how many bells and whistles are built in to a design, supplying relevant information is key to the success of any website.

For this reason typography should be considered as a very important part in the development process. In this article we shall look at some simple ideas designers use to keep text under control.

Ditch the Lorem Ipsum ASAP!

Lorem Ipsum is the latin looking text you sometimes see on the web, designers can generate random passages of Lorem Ipsum to use as a placeholder until the final text content is available.

Though a good short term method, it’s always a better idea to have some text content prepared, at least your “Home Page” and “About Us” page written for the start of the website development process. Supplying text content to your web designer at the start means they can read and understand your requirements better.

What is the responsibility of the web designer

Some designers think it fine to just Copy and Paste text into a design and that is the end of their typography duties, however a designer that has a good understanding of the text will find it much easier to produce a stylish and efficient website.

Once the text is in the design you will have the opportunity to see how it looks and reads in place. This can really help to show up any long, difficult to read lines or awkward line-breaks. Typography can itself add shape and form to the design so re-writing text and reshaping images can make a powerful difference to the overall look of a page.

Text and responsive design

Your website is being viewed on many different devices with many different screen shapes and sizes. The main function of responsive design is to give your users a great experience on these smaller screens, so a good deal of attention should be paid to responsive typography.

The designer will need to consider font size, paragraphs and margins to make best use of the space available, special attention should be paid to headings and other larger text elements.

Margins between content blocks will need more emphasis at these smaller screen sizes. Designers will usually like to make these adjustments live across all the popular web browsers, which gives them the best testing environment.

Conclusion

There is no doubt, typography and the font-faces designers choose have a huge impact on multiple aspects of your website. It’s essential designers properly understand the principles of using typography to create a pleasing design, only then can your website properly communicate the key messages of your business.

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