Get it Type: Six Fundamentals of Good Typography in Website Design

Typography is often one of the least appreciated – yet most important – aspects of website design. So much more than just the “font” that is used to present your site’s content, the choice of typeface does as much to set the tone of the site as the colors, images and other visual components of the design. If the content on your website is your brand’s message, then the typography is the voice with which your site speaks that message. The study of typography has a long and rich history. While designers work for years to perfect this practice, by cultivating an understanding of a few basic principles, you can more effectively communicate with your design team as you work collaboratively to make the right typography choice for your website and, through those choices, find the perfect voice for your site. Here are six fundamentals of good typographic design that will help you avoid potential pitfalls and make sound aesthetic choices that will strike the right tone and support the delivery of your message:

1. Know what’s possible.

If you’ve been involved in a website design project in the past, then you’ve likely heard the phrase “web-safe fonts.” For years, limitations in web browsers forced us to utilize a very small group of fonts for our websites. If you requested the use of a font that fell outside of this select group, you would have been directed, instead, to one of these web-safe fonts so that the site’s text could be reliably displayed across a wide variety of browsers. In the past few years, however, this restriction has been greatly minimized as a new feature called @font-face (pronounced “at font face”) has been introduced, allowing us to make use of thousands of new fonts on our websites in a reliable way. This is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing lies in the ability to use the wide array of wonderful typefaces available to us today to create incredibly rich and unique designs. The curse is that, with so many options, it’s all too easy to overdo it and create a muddled mess with competing typefaces that obfuscate the message you are trying to send. Also, despite all of the advancements made in web fonts in the past few years, there are still limitations to what we can and cannot do with fonts on websites, so ask your web design team about these limitations to ensure you make choices that will work on a technical level.

2. Make strategic use of different font classifications.

Different font classifications have different feels and serve different purposes, so developing an understanding of these classifications is a good place to start.

Serif

A serif is “any of the short lines stemming from, and at an angle to, the upper and lower ends of the strokes of a letter.” If you look at a font like Times New Roman, you will notice the little flourishes that hang off the ends of each letter, adding an extra embellishment to those letterforms. Besides Times New Roman, other popular serif fonts include Georgia, Baskerville, Garamond and Palatino. Serif fonts are often used when you want to convey a sense of history or tradition in a design. Historically, serif fonts were used in the body text of printed works because they made large blocks of text easy to read. For computer screens, serif fonts are very versatile and can be used effectively for either body text or headlines. The accounting and business consulting firm KLR uses the serif font Georgia throughout their site to create a look that conveys a sense of professionalism, trustworthiness and experience.

Sans-serif

Sans-serif, or “without serif,” fonts feature letterforms that do not have the extra embellishments found on serif fonts. Common sans-serif fonts include Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Futura and Tahoma. In printed text, sans-serif fonts were typically used only as headlines because it was easier to read body text set as a serif font rather than a sans-serif, but for computer screens and websites, sans-serif fonts are equally as readable and versatile as serif fonts, so they can be used either for headlines or body text. The straight lines of sans-serif fonts and the lack of extra ornamentation often make these typefaces good choices to create a sleek, modern look. An example of sans-serif fonts can be found here on Fame Foundry in our navigation, our main billboard message and throughout our site in both headlines and body text.

Slab-serif

Similar to serif fonts in that they have extra embellishments added to them, slab-serif fonts often feature thicker, chunky letters whose serifs are blocky with little, if any, contrast between thin and thick lines. Typical slab-serif fonts include Rockwell and Clarendon. The bold letterforms and serifs of this font classification often give them a strong, impressive weight when used as headlines. These fonts are typically not used as body text but are often set in large sizes as headlines. An example of slab-serif fonts can be seen in the logo, navigation and main headlines of Brown Family Seafood’s website, which uses a typeface called ChunkFive.

Display

Display fonts are typefaces that are typically only used at large sizes and are therefore better suited to headlines and large messages than body text. Display fonts typically have lots of character to them and are richly designed. With a wide variety of looks and styles available in display fonts, these fonts can be an excellent choice for headlines since they will add that character to the design, but these fonts are also easy to abuse or overuse. Typically, more than one display font in a design is too much. A few examples of display fonts are shown below:

Grunge

Grunge fonts are typefaces that are designed to show artificial wear, almost like the printing on a vintage t-shirt that has been through the wash many, many times. These fonts, which are also typically used only in headlines or for large, short bursts of text, are a great choice when you are trying to add a worn, textured feel to your design. The city locations listed in the billboard text on Zombie Charge, which tries to recreate a worn and battered look for their zombie-themed adventure runs, uses a grunge font called Umbrage.

Script

Script fonts have a classy, elegant feel to them. These fonts typically have long, flowing characters and very thin letterforms. Because of this, script fonts are often only used for headlines and at larger sizes, because if you set these fonts too small, the thin letters become unreadable. Script fonts are a great choice when you are looking for a high-end, elegant feel and tone. You can see a script font, Allura, used in a number of places in the design for Concord OB/GYN, including in their navigation and main billboard messaging.

Hand-drawn

Fonts that are classified as “hand-drawn” have an organic, if perhaps flawed, look to them. If a script font is drawn by a master artist, then a hand-drawn font is scratched out by an everyday writer who may be in a bit of a rush. These fonts can be used to add a human touch to a design and make it feel like an actual person, and not a digital computer, wrote out the words. The font Mathlete that is used on the billboard message for Sweet Nina’s Nom-Noms has an organic, hand-drawn feel to it that reflects the handcrafted desserts that the company offers.

Novelty

Novelty fonts are often made to replicate popular brands and their distinct characteristic look (think Coca-Cola or Harry Potter). Because of their inextricable association with a well-known brand, these fonts are rarely appropriate to use on a website for another company. Other novelty fonts simulate things like dripping liquid, wood pieces or bones to create the letterforms. While these display fonts are not immediately associated with another brand or company, their overly stylized design also makes them a poor choice for most applications – although if you are going for this type of overly stylized look (for a Halloween-themed billboard message, perhaps), then they can be considered. A few examples of novelty fonts are show below:

3. Always preserve readability.

As you undoubtedly noticed in perusing the above overview of font classifications, most of these fonts are meant to be set at large sizes as headlines. Only serif and sans-serif fonts are versatile enough to be used effectively for both headlines and body text. This is because of readability. If the font you use for your website is your site’s voice, you not only want to be sure the voice is appropriate for your brand but also that the voice speaks clearly. In this case, “speaking clearly” means having text that is easy to read. The overly stylized letterforms of grunge or display fonts and the thin letters of script or hand-drawn typefaces make them difficult, if not impossible, to read when set at smaller sizes. Since body text is set at smaller sizes, using these fonts would be an inappropriate choice. Regardless of which font you use, be sure to view it at the size that it will be set at for the actual website and in the colors that will be used. This will allow you to see the contrast that font has when set against its background so you can determine if the choice you have made provides an easy reading experience for your audience.

4. Avoid overused fonts.

Certain fonts carry a stigma with them due to how they may have been used, or overused, in the past. Fonts like Papyrus have been used in so many – often poorly applied – ways that they immediately have a negative association attached to them. In the case of Papyrus, there is even a website called Papyrus Watch that will show you many examples of how this font has been used and abused. Other fonts become overused in a relatively short time. The typeface Gotham was used by the Obama campaign in 2008, and it quickly started showing up everywhere as other designers jumped onto the bandwagon of this suddenly popular font. As a result, Gotham quickly hit the saturation point and now feels cliched. Some fonts may not be overused in general but only in your niche or market. If your competitors all use the same type choices, there is an easily forgettable, vanilla quality to that approach. By choosing a different typeface, you can set yourself and your site apart from your competition right from the start.

5. Practice restraint.

The wealth of fonts available to use today makes it very easy to overdo it, but by practicing restraint and limiting your site to maybe two or three different font choices at most, we can work to avoid overuse. As Robert Bringhurst says in his definitive volume, The Elements of Typographic Style, “Don’t use a font you don’t need.” By limiting your site’s design to only a couple of choices, you’ll create a clean, clear visual rhythm and ensure that the variety of type styles do not create a confusing mess.

6. Choose complementary fonts.

One way to limit your font choices is to select a pair of fonts that contrast and complement each other, perhaps with one choice for headlines and another for body text. This contrast, and the restraint demonstrated by your choices, will help create a professional and readable presentation. A look at my own personal website shows this contrast. The site uses two fonts, the thick slab-serif ChunkFive for the navigation, main billboard message and logo, and a contrasting sans-serif font, Roboto, for the body text. The thick, chunky letterforms of the slab-serif work well alongside the thin, clean letters of the serif, creating a presentation that is easy to read with font choices that do not overpower the messages I am trying to send.

In summary

With a basic understanding of typographic best practices, you can better communicate with your design team to select font choices that work best for your organization. Some basics to remember include:

1. Despite the advancements made in web fonts in the past few years, there are still limitations to what we can and cannot do with fonts on our websites. Ask your web team about these limitations to ensure you make choice that will work on a technical level.
2. Understand the different font classifications and make choices that reflect the personality of your brand.
3. Always remember that readability is key and choose fonts set at a size and color contrast that make them easy to read on the screen.
4. Avoid overused fonts or fonts that carry a negative association with them from the very start.
5. Don’t overdo it. A few judicious selections should be all you need.
6. Look for fonts that pair well together. Using one font for headlines and another for body copy is one way you can the number of fonts while still maintaining nice variety and contrast.

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Don't Call It a Comeback: Why Email Marketing Still Matters

"The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated." – Mark Twain

There's been some chatter around the Web in recent years about the looming death of email at the hands of social media.

Scandalous as it sounds, though, many of us wouldn't mind seeing our bulging inboxes go away. The Telegraph recently highlighted a study connecting email to stress at work. Not surprisingly, participant stress levels spiked at points in the day when inboxes were fullest. Shocking revelation, right?

But whether the thought of email extinction unsettles or elates you, a closer look at its role in our work and lives reveals that the reports of email's death are greatly exaggerated.

State of the union email address

Social media may be doing the heavy lifting when it comes to sharing our lives, but email remains a valued, private and protected channel for conducting life and business online.

We use email to keep up with the brands, organizations and communities we care about through e-newsletters, news alerts, daily deals, group activity digests, etc.

We use it to conduct business online, such as registration for services, support requests, banking e-statements and payment confirmations. You can even get receipts emailed to you from the registers of many brick-and-mortar retailers now.

Ironically, even social media is using email to keep us engaged. How often do you receive notifications from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the lot about new followers, daily/weekly activity digests, new comments on conversations and suggestions for new connections?

Marketer's know the inbox is alive and well, and they're still pumping out white papers and webinars about email marketing. Email service providers like Constant Contact and MailChimp—and a half-dozen others—are still thriving.

Email still matters because it is so closely connected to our identities and our lives. It's less transient than social media. People delete their accounts—ask Facebook after a privacy policy change. Social sites rise and fall in popularity—last year it was Pinterest, this year Instagram. Some professionals hardly check their LinkedIn accounts. But nearly everyone online has an email account that they check regularly and some of us have had a particular address for 10, 15, and nearly 20 years.

So if email is closely connected to who we are as people, it's important that we as business growers frame email marketing efforts in this light. Forget open rates, click throughs, bounce rates, etc. for just a moment and let's focus on three keys to connecting with customers in their inboxes.

Key #1: Relationship

By signing up to receive your emails, customers are inviting you into their inbox—a personal space. They "opt-in" in faith that you will deliver value and not abuse the privilege.

This transaction of trust is as important as the ones involving money. Your email recipients are in fact customers even if they've never spent a penny on your products or services. They are paying for your email content with their time and attention.

Unfortunately, many businesses today don't understand (or ignore) this relationship dynamic and treat email like direct mail, using "spray and pray" tactics—"I've got a message to get out and a database full of email addresses. Let's do this!"

If you "e-blast" your customers, by the way, you may be guilty of this kind of marketing terrorism.

As customers welcome you into their inboxes, treat them with respect. Give them value. Be a guest they'll want to come back again and again. Essentially, don't be self-centered or rude.

Ultimately, the key to building relationships with your customers through email is the Golden Rule.  Email as you would want to be emailed.

Key #2: Content

Email marketing is content marketing ...  And the first key to great email content is to give subscribers what they want.

Give 'em what they want

If you offer multiple email subscription options for your customers—for example deals, company news, e-newsletters, etc.—then honor their wishes. If all I want is deals, don't send me your press releases.

If you don't segment your email content like this and basically have one big mailing list, then it's important to actively get feedback from subscribers to determine what types of content they're interested in—and how often want to get it, but more on that later. Consider polling your list once or twice a year to see which features they like best. Or better yet, make your emails "reply-able" and end them with a question like "How can we improve the content of our emails for you?" This type of engagement with the reader make the email more of a two-way conversation.

To increase trust and interest earlier, at the email sign-up form, make it clear what customers will be getting by subscribing. The more clarity you provide the more comfortable and more emotionally invested they will be.

Be interesting

It may sound obvious, but make it a priority to have something interesting to say or share with subscribers. Give them a reason to keep reading.

NextDraft is an an email newsletter published daily by Dave Pell in which Dave simply currates news from all over the web and delivers "The day's most fascinating news" right to your inbox. His description of NextDraft is better than any I could offer:

Each morning I visit about fifty news sites and from that swirling nightmare of information quicksand, I pluck the top ten most fascinating items of the day, which I deliver with a fast, pithy wit that will make your inbox vibrate with delight...

Imagine this: You'll actually look forward to email again. It's totally free and almost no one ever unsubscribes. The subscription form is up there, just a few pixels away. Go ahead. Give your inbox some awesome.

Just as captivating as the 10 intriguing stories Dave highlights each day is the smart writing he uses to set up each story and string them all together.  Here's a sample:

Put a little art in their inbox

I always open emails from Berlin-based software firm 6Wunderkinder because they are the most beautifully designed ones in my inbox. Great design is core to the 6Wunderkinder brand and products, and this commitment carries over into their email, which always look great and announce something worth reading about. Here's a recent sample from my inbox:

You don't have to be a design firm or developer to put together attractive html-based emails. Most email services providers have templates with drag-and-drop customization. But ... HTML-based email can be a little tricky in the ways it's rendered by various email software, so if in doubt, it's probably better to get some professional help.

Customize content to show you care

A growing trend in the email marketing world is email personalization, serving up different types of content to customers based demographics like location, sex or age as well as cues from their interactions with the brand or where they are in the sales pipeline. Personalization increases the value of your emails by providing content that fits more closely with customers interests and other characteristics.

For example, IKEA is a global brand, so the emails I get from their loyalty program, IKEA Family, are specific to my local store in Charlotte—not Stockholm.  In the example below, they even offer a deal in collaboration with the local minor league baseball team, the Knights. And local store information—location, hours, and contact info—is included at the bottom.

While this level of personalization involves some pretty robust marketing software, businesses without such resources can still tailor messages to specific groups of readers by segmenting their email lists through criteria like geographic location. Additionally, the major email service providers do offer some basic tools for email personalization. Just remember that the goal of any customization is to deliver a better, more personalized email experience to your customers.

Key #3: Frequency

A recent marketing study conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit and Lyris, asked participants, "In your opinion, what frustrates you most about companies’ use of online communications?" Eighty percent of respondents chose "Too many unwanted email messages," outpacing the second place option by more than thirty points.

Most of us have grown accustomed to the tidal wave of information that is social media, so we're used to ignoring a lot of it. But email has to be managed. We generally touch each piece of mail, much in the same way as postal mail for centuries past. So the motivation here is to send only enough mail to provide value to subscribers, without being associated with inbox burnout.

Research by Eloqua shows that a judicious frequency of emails sent isn't just good for the customer, it's good for campaign performance. In essence, it appears from the chart below that when it comes to getting customers to email marketing that gets results, less is more.

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