NED11: Module 5

Notes from Unit Outline
Typography is important when designing a website. Not only should your typographic treatment be easy to read, it should clearly indicate what should be read first, second and third, and compliment the overall visual design of your site.

• Font size should be chosen so it is legible. 6pt is just big enough to be legible on Windows, but too small on a Mac
• There are considered to be 72 points per inch (2.54cm) and most font types range from 5 to 72 points. The smaller the point size - the smaller the type
• You should use italics when using foreign words or phrases and listing book or periodical titles
• Bold face text gives emphasis because it contrasts in colour from the body text. Section subheads work well in bold
• Letter spacing controls are limited on the web so this feature is best limited to headlines and smaller snippets of text requiring a subtle touch
• For line height is is recommended to have 2-4 points extra for leading to the point size of your fonts
• Margins provide important visual relief in any document
• Padding is used to specify the distance between one side of an element's content area and its border. You can adjust the padding at the top and bottom and the left and right
• Text-alignments vary depending on the browser users use and they can only be applied to block elements
• Indenting works well for long blocks of text. This is used as an alternative to leaving a blank line between paragraphs. It provides relief between paragraphs and makes the pages easy to scan
• Be careful with uppercase letters. They are a common and least effective method for adding emphasis. Use sparingly, but it's OK for headings
• Empty spaces on webs pages are left on purpose to give visual relief and crate more emphasis on other objects
• Times New Roman is almost always the default serif font, other examples are Georgia and Garamond
• Sans-serf fonts most common font is Arial. Others include Arial Black, Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Geneva and Tahoma
• Cursive fonts simulate hand-written appearance and are mainly used for headers. Comic Sans is the most common cursive font for Windows and Apple Chancery for the Mac
• Monospace fonts include Courier, Courier New and Andale Mono. All letters in monospace take up the exact same width, i.e. the letter i will take up as much room as the letter w
• There is also a Fantasy fonts like Impact however they are rarely used for web design.
• It is customary to use sans serif type for headings and serif type for long passages of body text. Most newspapers and books adhere to this practice, but it is something still debated when it comes to the Web (with many claiming it should be the other way around)
• Pixels are the most basic level of measurement on a computer screen. Using 'px' is the most exact control for onscreen type, but not regarded good practice due to IE5 inconsistencies
• A better measurement for font size which proves fairly consistent across browsers is xx-small, x-small, small, medium, large, x-large, and xx-large
• Justified text looks crude due to browser limitations with the lack of hyphenation on the web. Titles and headings over justified text should be centered.