Typography, as in all disciplines related to graphic design, is a fundamental tool for the design of a website. It is also a very important element in the development of brand communication. It will define to a large extent the tone of our website, which makes it a fundamental element.
Nowadays we no longer have the limitations we had before, when we only had 2 or 3 typography options to choose from. The difficult thing now is to decide and take into account the following aspects that we will discuss in this post.
What to consider when choosing a typeface for your website?
Choosing a typeface is no easy task and even less so when we don't know which typefaces are best for digital media. Luckily we have a wide catalogue in
Google Fonts where you can filter by categories and that will help you to choose the most suitable one. In each of them there is a brief description in which you can discover what the typeface has been created for, if it is more suitable for headlines or if it works for both headlines and long texts.
How many fonts can I use on my website?
There is no rule that determines how many to use, but it is advisable not to use more than 3 typefaces. If we find a typeface that suits us and that is also versatile, we will see that we can use it in different weights: regular, medium, bold, extrabold, etc. This will generate contrast and a lot of play when composing. However, we may find ourselves in a situation where we are looking for a typeface for headlines and another for long texts. The more detail and ornamentation a typeface has, the more difficult it is to read at small sizes, so I recommend that you first acquire some basic notions to be able to differentiate each typeface and use them properly. You can browse through John Kane's
Manual de tipografía, a classic, or two other options from Campgràfic,
Manual de tipografía by José Luis Martín and Montse Mas and
Manual de tipografía digital by Daniel Rodríguez Valero.
What does a typeface convey?
Romantic, professional, fun or serious are some of the many adjectives that we can relate to a typeface. If it is very expanded or more slender, the detail of the finials, the thickness and even the contrast provide character and identity to the typeface and, therefore, to your design. Before making a selection, you should think about what you want to transmit with this typography. It is not the same to make the web design of a technology company than a theme park website. First of all, we should take into account these aspects that will help us to transmit what we want on our website.
Typographic composition
It is not only important to know how to choose a typeface, it is also important to know how to use it. To generate interest in the reader, it is important to focus on the layout. Deciding where to leave the white space, not creating columns that are too wide or too small and using the right font size will make the overall typographic composition pleasant and enjoyable to read or, on the contrary, it will become a torture for the reader.
